Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The soft whirring of gears and the faint hum of machinery filled the small workshop. The remnants of Light Laboratories were scattered throughout, but there was no denying the spark of life it still held. Rocky Light rubbed his eyes, blinking against the early morning light streaming through the makeshift curtains.

Rush, his robotic dog, trotted over to him, wagging his tail with a mechanical whirr and letting out a cheerful bark that ended in an upward electronic trill — his signature "woo-woop". He gave a playful spin on his hind wheels before nuzzling Rocky's hand, tail swishing like a little red metronome. Rocky smiled weakly, scratching the dog’s head.

"I’m not Mega Man yet, Rush. Still gotta get through a whole school day." Rocky let out a small groan, tossing the covers off and rolling out of bed. He glanced over at his desk, where his old Mega Man helmet and gloves lay, slightly dusty.

A voice from the other room called out, "Rocky, don’t forget your lunch!" It was Roll, his sister, standing in the doorway. She was sometimes the more responsible one. Even if she had no independent determination chip like he did, her personality was more than enough to keep everyone on track.

"I won’t forget, I won’t forget," Rocky muttered, grabbing his school bag. "Hey, Roll, remind Dr. Light not to get too caught up in his projects today."

Roll gave him a stern look. "That’s the second time this week you’ve told me that. Maybe you should stay home and help him."

"I’d love to, but school doesn’t take a vacation." He grinned, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Roll frowned but didn't argue. "Just be careful. Dr. Light might not like to admit it, but he worries about you."

"Tell him I’ll be fine." He forced a smile before turning to leave. "But after school, I gotta go save the world, again."

As he walked out, he glanced once more at a framed photo on the wall — one taken before the fire that destroyed their original home. Dr. Light, Roll, Rocky, and even Blues were all in it, smiling and whole. Now the glass was cracked, the corner slightly burned, but it still hung there.

The halls of Mega City Junior High were a mix of excitement and chaos, with students chattering about the upcoming Winter Festival Dance. Alan was practically bouncing on his heels as he explained the rules of the new chess tournament to anyone who would listen.

"You have to join, Rocky," Alan said, practically begging. "It’s the event of the year."

Rocky smiled weakly. "Maybe next time, Alan. I’m just... not feeling it."

"Alright, alright," Alan said, rolling his eyes, though his grin didn’t falter. "But you have to at least come to the Winter Dance."

"Yeah, yeah, maybe," Rocky mumbled, but his mind wasn’t on chess tournaments or dances. It was already shifting to something else: the possibility of danger lurking in the city.

Across the room, Chelsea, the only girl Rocky felt he could talk to without the weight of expectations — ever since they’d bonded over him stopping a catastrophe during lunch on his first day, walked over. "So, you’re actually gonna go to the Winter Dance, right?" she asked, a teasing smile playing on her lips.

Rocky blinked at her, caught off guard. "Maybe. I don’t know. I have a feeling the Boltz Brothers are gonna make it a nightmare."

Chelsea shot him a sympathetic look, glancing at the trio of troublemakers who were more interested in tormenting Rocky than anyone else. The Boltz Brothers—Dixwell, Dag, and Dez—were infamous for not only being held back several times, their pranks and their constant bullying. But it was more than just their usual taunts. They were watching him closely. Too closely.

"Ignore them," Chelsea said, shaking her head. "They don’t know who they’re messing with."

Rocky nodded, but a knot in his stomach twisted. The last thing he wanted was to have his secret identity exposed.

Before he could say anything more, a sharp voice interrupted. "Light!" It was Mr. Skane, a new teacher who always seemed a little... off. His graying hair was always slicked back just a bit too neatly, and he had a habit of tapping a silver pen against his wrist in perfect intervals — like a metronome counting down to something only he understood. "Aren’t you going to sit down for once?"

"Uh, sure, Mr. Skane," Rocky said, slinking into his seat. The teacher’s intense gaze lingered for a moment before he turned his attention to the rest of the class. Something about him gave Rocky an uneasy feeling, but he couldn’t place it.

As he opened his textbook, Rocky could swear Mr. Skane muttered something — a line of code under his breath. It was gone before he could catch it.

The school bell rang, signaling the end of the day, but Rocky’s mind was elsewhere. The moment he stepped outside, his communicator buzzed to life. It was Auto, the robot assistant who worked for Dr. Light.

"Mega, it’s urgent. The LPTCS node near the city center is acting up again. It’s malfunctioning, and traffic’s a mess. We need Mega Man to handle this."

Rocky’s heart raced, but he forced himself to stay calm. "Got it. I’ll be there."

He ducked into a nearby alley, quickly donning his Mega Man armor in a flash of light. His identity as the Blue Bomber was a heavy burden, but it was a burden he couldn’t ignore. The city needed him.

As he arrived at the malfunctioning traffic hub, he saw that it wasn’t just a random glitch. It was tampered with. The control system had been hacked, and the signals were out of control. Vehicles swerved and collided as Mega Man moved in to restore order.

But there was no enemy in sight. No robot master. No Dr. Wily’s usual style.

"Something’s off," Mega Man muttered, scanning the area. His instincts were always on high alert, but today they felt… sharper.

Before he could investigate further, a familiar figure appeared in the distance — Proto Man, standing motionless in the shadows.

"Still playing the lone wolf, I see," Mega Man called out, but Proto Man didn’t respond. He simply observed, his visor reflecting the chaos.

"I’ve got my eyes on this," Proto Man said cryptically, before turning and disappearing into the shadows.

Back in the safety of his room, Rocky let the transformation fade. The shimmering blue armor peeled away in threads of light, the hum of energy dissipating into the still air. As his normal clothes reformed, he gasped quietly — the shift always left a tingling numbness in his limbs, like shedding a second skin. He looked at his hands, now small and ungloved, and flexed his fingers, feeling both relief and a hollow ache. Part of him always lingered in that armored shell, like a phantom limb he couldn’t forget.. His armor melted away into a soft blue glow, leaving him standing in front of his mirror, staring at his reflection.

Who am I really? Rocky wondered, his fingers brushing against the helmet resting on his desk. He had two lives—two identities. One was the average student who couldn’t escape the ever-watchful eyes of his peers. The other was the hero who fought in the shadows, protecting a city that didn’t know his face.

He sat down on the edge of his bed, eyes heavy with the weight of both roles.

"Sometimes I wonder if I’m just pretending to be something I’m not," he murmured. "Am I really a boy... or am I just pretending to be one?"

Rush jumped up beside him, wagging his tail as if to reassure him. You’re both, he seemed to say, resting his head on Rocky’s lap.

The door creaked open, and Roll stepped inside, holding a tray with a mug of hot chocolate. "I thought you might want something warm."

"Thanks," Rocky said quietly.

She didn’t press him, just sat beside him, the silence stretching between them like a comforting blanket.

"You’re not alone, you know," she said finally. "You’ve got us. Me, Rush... even Blues, in his weird way."

Rocky smiled faintly. "Yeah. I know. I just... don’t always feel like both pieces fit."

Roll placed a hand over his. "Then we’ll help you put them together. That’s what families do."

Optional Epilogue Hook:
Somewhere deep beneath Mega City, flickering monitors cast a dim glow over a cluttered lab. W. Waltz watched surveillance footage of Rocky fighting earlier, her eyes narrowing.

"He’s adapting faster than expected," came Dr. Wily’s voice from off-screen. "We’ll have to test him properly next time."

Waltz leaned closer to the screen, brushing a lock of silver-streaked hair behind her ear as the faint hum of data feeds pulsed around her. A small smile tugged at her lips — not of joy, but recognition. In the reflection of the screen, her crimson eyes gleamed. Behind her, the flicker of test tubes and a dormant mech-suit cast eerie silhouettes against the lab wall. "Then let’s give him a real lesson in identity," she whispered, the words curling like smoke in the dim light. "Then let’s give him a real lesson in identity."

Chapter Text

Rocky sat at his desk in Mega City Junior High, trying to concentrate on his history notes. It was hard to focus when his mind kept drifting back to his role as Mega Man, and the mystery of what had happened earlier with the traffic system. He could still feel Proto Man’s eyes on him, the unspoken tension hanging between them.

The classroom lights flickered for a moment—barely noticeable, but enough to raise the hairs on Rocky’s neck. Outside the window, a strange glint caught his eye for just a second. Was someone watching?

Chelsea leaned over from her seat and whispered, "Hey, are you listening?"

Rocky snapped out of his thoughts, blinking at her. "Sorry, yeah, just… lost in thought."

"You've been lost in thought all week," she replied, raising an eyebrow. "What's going on?"

Before Rocky could respond, a loud voice cut through the class. "Hey, Light!" It was Dixwell Boltz, one of the notorious Boltz Brothers. He was standing near the back of the room, a smug grin on his face as he waved a crumpled paper in the air. "Think you can beat me in chess today? Bet I could destroy you in two moves."

Rocky groaned inwardly. The Boltz Brothers—Dixwell, Dag, and Dez—always managed to get under his skin, but today was different. Something felt off.

"Maybe after class," Rocky said, trying to remain calm.

Alan, who had been sitting next to Rocky, leaned over. His voice was steady, but his eyes flicked toward the Boltz Brothers with clear unease. "Don’t let them get to you, man. It’s just their usual act."

Rocky gave him a half-smile. "Yeah, but it’s been a weird day. I’ve got this feeling like someone’s watching me. And it’s not just the usual ‘Boltz Brothers being annoying’ vibe."

Chelsea frowned. "What do you mean? You think they’re—"

But before she could finish her sentence, Mr. Skane’s voice boomed across the room. "Alright, everyone, quiet down. I’m about to announce the results of today’s quiz."

The class fell silent. Mr. Skane’s face was unreadable as he scanned through the papers.

"Rocky," he said suddenly. "Care to explain what caused the collapse of the First Robot War Accord?"

Rocky blinked. "Uh… a malfunction in the—no, I mean… political pressure from the—"

A few kids snickered. Mr. Skane sighed. Rocky shrank in his seat.

The school day finally ended, but Rocky’s unease hadn’t faded. He quickly made his way to the alley behind the school where he could transform into Mega Man. As soon as his armor materialized, he felt the familiar surge of energy wash over him, the weight of responsibility settling onto his shoulders.

His visor blinked online, HUD snapping into place as he clenched his fists and exhaled.

"Let’s get this over with," he muttered, preparing to investigate whatever was causing his suspicions.

Roll’s voice crackled through his communicator. "Rocky, I’ve detected something strange in the area. The Boltz Brothers accessed an off-limits substation an hour ago. Now they’re heading toward the city’s industrial district."

That was all Rocky needed to hear. "I’m on it."

The wind howled through the industrial district, a maze of factories and rusted machinery. Steam hissed from nearby vents, and the air reeked of oil and ozone. The sounds of clanging metal and whirring gears filled the air. Mega Man’s footsteps echoed as he moved cautiously through the shadows, keeping his senses sharp.

He wasn’t sure what the Boltz Brothers were up to, but it wasn’t good. He had faced these punks enough to know that they weren’t just after a prank this time.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps behind him made him freeze. Before he could react, a voice called out.

"You’re not going to stop us, Mega Flan!" Dixwell Boltz shouted, his grin wide and dangerous.

Mega Man whirled around, just in time to see Dag and Dez emerging from the shadows, each of them wielding a weapon—Dag with a massive wrench, and Dez with a high-voltage gun.

"You think you can mess with us?" Dez sneered, his gun crackling with electric energy. "We’ve got plans of our own now. No more games."

Rocky’s grip tightened on his arm cannon. "You’re going to regret this, Boltz."

Before the situation could escalate further, a sharp, mechanical whirring filled the air. Mega Man turned just in time to see a mysterious new robot landing in front of him. The robot’s body was sleek, with sharp angles and a dark metallic hue. Its movements were smooth, too smooth—like it had already calculated everyone’s next step.

It had no distinguishing features other than the glowing red eyes, which seemed to lock directly onto him.

"That’s... new," Mega Man muttered.

The Boltz Brothers stepped back in awe, their eyes wide. "What the—?"

The robot advanced, its arms morphing into dual blasters, aiming directly at Mega Man.

"Who sent you?" Mega Man demanded, raising his arm cannon.

The robot didn’t answer. Instead, it launched a barrage of blasts toward Mega Man, forcing him to leap out of the way.

"This is bad," he said, dodging another attack. Sparks danced off the pavement as metal scorched around him. The Boltz Brothers weren’t exactly helping—they were more interested in the show than in aiding their creation.

Rocky realized that whatever this robot was, it wasn’t a regular enemy. It was something else entirely.

"I’ve got to end this fast," Mega Man thought, focusing his fire on the robot’s core, trying to disable it.

With a final blast from his arm cannon, the mysterious robot faltered, its systems shutting down. It collapsed to the ground in a heap of sparks.

"Who was that?" Rocky breathed, his voice low.

Before he could investigate further, a voice suddenly crackled through his communicator.

"It’s a test."

Rocky’s heart skipped a beat as he recognized the voice. It was Proto Man.

"Test?" Mega Man repeated, his brow furrowing. "What are you talking about?"

"The robot. It was a prototype," Proto Man’s voice said, cold and distant. "A test to see how you would handle it. But there’s more coming. A lot more. You’re going to need to be prepared, Mega Man."

"Prepared for what?" Rocky asked, his frustration building. "What is all this? Why won’t you just tell me the truth?"

There was a pause. The static on the line surged slightly—like someone else had almost broken into the signal.

"You’ll find out soon enough," Proto Man said cryptically, before cutting the transmission.

Mega Man was left standing in the industrial district, the remains of the robot at his feet. His mind raced as the Boltz Brothers taunted him while running off into the darkness.

"I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’ve got to get to the bottom of this," he muttered to himself.

Later that night, after taking care of a few more loose ends, Mega Man returned to Dr. Light’s lab. The warm hum of machinery was a stark contrast to the cold streets outside. Dr. Light was already there, working late as usual, multiple screens casting light across his weary face.

"You’re back early," Dr. Light said, glancing up from his work.

Rocky hesitated as he phased out of his armor, unsure how much to say. "There was an attack in the industrial district. A new robot. It was like nothing I’ve seen before."

Dr. Light’s expression darkened. He rubbed his temple and turned to a monitor showing incomplete data strings. "I’ve been picking up strange signals in the past few days, Rocky. Something’s happening in the city, and I’m afraid it’s not just random attacks."

"Do you think it’s Wily?" Rocky asked, his voice tight with concern.

"I don’t know yet," Dr. Light admitted. "But something tells me this isn’t just about him. There are others at play. Dangerous others."

From across the room, Roll stood by the tool bench, unusually quiet. Even Auto, halfway through installing a soda dispenser in the wall, paused to glance over, concern in his optics.

Rocky’s stomach churned. "What do we do now?"

Dr. Light looked at him with a mix of caution and determination. "We get ready. Whatever’s coming, it’s not going to be easy. And you’ll need all the help you can get."

Chapter Text

The gymnasium echoed with the shrill sound of a whistle and the screech of sneakers on polished floor. Balls bounced off walls, ricocheted off heads, and occasionally soared clean out the doors. It was dodgeball day — a sacred ritual of chaos at Mega City Junior High.

Rocky Light stood near the edge of the court, doing his best to look inconspicuous. It wasn’t easy. Not when the Boltz Brothers were on the opposing team and already grinning like hyenas.

“Light!” Dixwell yelled, launching a ball with terrifying force. “This one’s got your name on it!”

Rocky barely ducked in time. The ball hit the wall behind him with a thunk that made everyone flinch.

“Is this even legal?” Alan yelped from behind a row of stacked mats, peeking out like a groundhog. “I’m pretty sure they’re aiming to kill!”

Chelsea, unfazed, caught a ball one-handed and immediately nailed Dez in the gut. “One down,” she smirked. “Two to go.”

“Farm-girl reflexes,” Rocky said, half-joking. But the tension under his smile was real. His instincts were flaring again. Too sharp. Too fast.

Dag hurled another ball, this time straight at Rocky’s chest.

Without thinking, Rocky caught it.

The gym fell silent.

There was a visible dent in the ball’s rubber shell. Everyone saw it. Even the coach paused mid-yell.

Chelsea leaned toward Rocky. “...Dude.”

Rocky forced a grin and shrugged. “Uh… guess I’ve been drinking my calcium?”

“Or you’ve been doing something you shouldn’t be,” Dixwell muttered just loud enough for only Rocky to hear. His eyes narrowed. “Robots don’t play fair, Light.”

Rocky’s heart skipped a beat...

Does he know?

Chelsea stepped in, laughing loudly. “He’s just mad I got his brother out. Don’t mind the caveman growls.”

The whistle blew again, pulling focus away. But the damage was done. Rocky could feel it. The cracks weren’t just showing — they were widening.

The final bell rang, but Rocky didn’t wait around to collect looks or questions. He mumbled something to Chelsea and ducked out the side exit, adrenaline still pulsing in his fingertips.

He cut behind the cafeteria dumpsters and into the alley, chest heaving.

Too close. Too many eyes. Too much strength. His hands were still trembling — not from fear, but from the effort it took to stop himself from reacting the way Mega Man would. He couldn’t keep doing this. Something was going to give.

He pulled the communicator from his jacket.

“Auto?” he whispered.

The robot’s voice came in panicked and sharp. “Rocky! Level 3 alert. A known hostile just reactivated in Sector 12. Surveillance picked up green ion discharges — same signature as… Barrage Man.”

Rocky’s blood ran cold.

“I thought he was toast.”

“Apparently someone reheated him.”

Rocky glanced back toward the school, toward normal life. Then down the alley — toward whatever this was turning into.

He didn’t hesitate.

With a shimmer of blue light and a faint digital chime, he transformed into Mega Man. His arm cannon locked into place as his visor slid down over his eyes.

“On it.”

Sector 12 was a tangle of metal and concrete — a long-forgotten district of traffic nodes and service tunnels. Smog clung to the streets like a bad memory. Pipes hissed. Neon signs blinked with no audience.

Mega Man crept through the haze, the static hum of his sensors rising. Every footstep echoed.

Then he heard it — the whump of heavy metal on asphalt.

“PURGE. CLEANSE. CLEAR THE PATH.”

From behind a crumbling barrier, Barrage Man emerged. Towering. Groaning. Sparking from his joints. His massive arms pulsed with green light as his Ion Blasters spun up.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Mega Man breathed.

Without warning, the blasts came — a volley of searing green bolts, tearing through walls and igniting air. Mega Man ducked, rolled, and returned fire, his own charged shots ricocheting off Barrage Man’s armor.

“FUNCTION OVERRIDE. ELIMINATE OBSTACLES.”

“You are the obstacle!” Mega Man shouted, trying to outmaneuver the brute.

But Barrage Man wasn’t acting like before. His movements were jerky. His voice glitched. Like he was… rebooting.

Before Mega Man could recalibrate, another voice rang out.

“You never learn, do you?”

Proto Man landed in a streak of red, deflecting a blast with his shield.

Mega Man blinked. “You again?”

“You’d be dead without me. Let’s go.”

Together, they flanked Barrage Man — Mega Man targeting joints and exposed wiring while Proto Man absorbed shots and struck from behind. The fight was brutal. The ground shook with every blast.

Finally, they cornered him beneath a crumbling scaffolding.

“Now!” Proto Man shouted.

Mega Man fired a charged shot straight into the power core beneath Barrage Man’s left arm. The resulting explosion blew the bot backward into the wall, where he twitched once… then collapsed in a hail of sparks.

Silence fell.

They stood atop the wreckage, lit only by the emergency lights flashing below. Sirens wailed distantly, but neither moved.

“You knew he’d be here,” Mega Man said.

“I knew something would be,” Proto Man replied, arms crossed. “He was bait. A prototype reactivation — crudely done, but just enough to get your attention.”

“Whose attention?” Rocky pressed.

Proto Man didn’t answer right away. His visor glinted in the red light. “Someone’s reactivating Wily tech. Testing you. Seeing what you’ll do. How far they can push before you break.”

Mega Man swallowed hard. His mind flashed back to the gym. The dented ball. Dixwell’s accusation.

“Do you know who?”

“No. But they’ve already started.”

He turned, stepping into the shadows.

“Wait—” Mega Man called, but Proto Man was gone.

Again.

Dr. Light listened quietly as Rocky recounted everything.

“Barrage Man was defeated on my first day of school,” Rocky finished, shaking his head. “But someone rebuilt him. It wasn’t Wily’s usual handiwork. It was… clumsy. Rushed.”

Dr. Light looked grave. “I’ve been monitoring erratic signals from several decommissioned facilities. Someone’s activating them — maybe remotely.”

Rocky clenched a fist, frustration simmering beneath his calm voice. “Proto Man thinks it’s just the beginning.”

Dr. Light placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Then we prepare. This isn’t just about fixing systems anymore.” His voice softened. “It’s about protecting the people inside them.”

Rocky nodded, but his stomach still churned.

How many more would come? How long could he keep the mask on — at school, on the streets, in his own mind?

A screen flickered in the darkness, casting cold light across a cluttered lab.

W. Waltz leaned forward, eyes glinting behind her glasses. She typed a single line of code with surgical precision.

“Bait performed as expected,” she murmured. “Cognitive load increased under stress. Subject response: swift, emotional. Still reactive.”

She turned slightly, addressing the shadow behind her. “We need something subtler next time. Something elegant. Something… likable.”

Dr. Wily smirked from the gloom, folding his arms.

“Let’s see how our hero handles charm.”

Behind them, schematic files loaded across a bank of monitors — slick silhouettes, glowing eyes, modular weapons. One profile blinked at the top:
[Status: Ready for Field Test]

Chapter Text

The chatter of students filled the lunchroom, the clatter of trays and the sound of slurping noodles in the air. The menu was an Italian feast—lasagna, spaghetti, rigatoni, ravioli, pizza, and trenette al pesto. It was a rare treat, and students dug in with enthusiasm, while Rocky, Chelsea, and Alan sat at their usual spot near the windows.

Chelsea poked at her spaghetti with a bored look, but her mind was elsewhere. “Have you guys noticed how weird the robot attacks have been getting lately?” she asked, suddenly leaning forward. “Like, they’ve been all over the place, and the targets aren’t always random. Someone’s pulling the strings.”

Alan raised an eyebrow as he shoved a forkful of lasagna into his mouth. “I’m sure Mega Man’s keeping them at bay. We haven’t heard about major destruction in a while, right?”

Chelsea wasn’t convinced. “Yeah, but eventually even Mega Man is gonna get overwhelmed. He’s not invincible. You can’t just expect one guy to take care of everything.”

Rocky shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His mind raced for a moment, his instincts kicking in, but he pushed the thought down. He didn’t want to sound paranoid. “He’s doing fine,” Rocky muttered, reaching for a piece of pizza to distract himself. "He’s got this."

Chelsea eyed him suspiciously, clearly not buying it. “I’m serious, though. What happens when there are too many of them? Or what if someone’s trying to wear him out?”

Rocky’s heart skipped. What if she’s right?

The thought hit him hard, deeper than he expected. What if it was too much for him? What if one day he couldn’t keep up with the chaos? What if... what if he lost control?

“Rocky?” Chelsea’s voice broke through his internal storm. “Are you okay?”

Snapping back to reality, he forced a grin. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just... tired, I guess. It’s been a long week.”

Chelsea didn’t look entirely convinced, but she didn’t press him further. She simply nodded and dug back into her food, but Rocky’s mind was far from the conversation. He couldn't shake the weight of Chelsea’s words.

The school bell rang, signaling the end of another day. Rocky barely registered the noise, his thoughts still swirling. He darted through the exit, trying to avoid the crowds. His pace quickened, but a slight twinge in his chest reminded him of the tension that was still there.

Just outside, he pulled his jacket tighter and reached into his pocket, pulling out his communicator. “Auto?” he whispered.

Immediately, Auto’s voice crackled through the tiny device. “Rocky, we’ve got a problem. Level 3 alert. Express Man has reappeared. We’ve got reports of him robbing a bank in the downtown district, and there’s a major traffic jam. Dr. Light's speed governor has been overridden—city’s in chaos.”

Rocky’s blood ran cold. “Express Man? Again? Thought he was taken down for good.”

“I thought so too, but... he’s back. And he’s faster than ever.”

Rocky’s heart raced. “Got it. I’m on my way.”

Before Auto could respond, Rocky’s transformation sequence began. Blue light shimmered around him, and his form flickered briefly before Mega Man stood in his place. His arm cannon locked into place, and his visor slid over his eyes with a faint whir.

“Let’s go,” he muttered to himself.

Mega Man sped through the streets of Mega City, the roads slick with rain and heavy traffic. The sound of honking horns echoed from every direction. Cars and buses were stopped in place, people frustrated and panicking.

As he approached the scene, he saw him—a blur of motion.

Express Man.

True to his name, the robot was a streak of motion, weaving between cars with terrifying speed. His limbs were light and nimble, and he zipped past obstacles with ease. In his arms, he clutched a large sack of stolen cash.

Mega Man increased his speed to match the fast-moving robot. “Express Man! Surrender now, and no one gets hurt!”

But Express Man didn’t listen. Instead, he whirled around, his wrist cannon firing off a rapid series of projectiles. Mega Man dove to the side, narrowly dodging the blast.

“You think you can stop me?!” Express Man taunted, his voice laced with digital distortion. “I’m faster than you, Mega Man! You can’t catch me!”

Mega Man’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not getting away with this.”

As Express Man tried to push his speed further, Mega Man activated his own thrusters, matching the bot’s pace. “You’ll have to do better than that!”

They raced down the highway, weaving between stalled vehicles and dodging stray traffic lights. It wasn’t long before Express Man fired a volley of missiles from his wrist, sending the street into chaos.

“Enough!” Mega Man shouted, locking onto his target. He raised his arm cannon, charging up a shot. “This ends now!”

But just as he was about to fire, Express Man launched himself into the air, kicking off a nearby building and disappearing into the horizon.

Mega Man hesitated, then sprinted after him, focusing all his energy on staying at top speed.

Mega Man and Express Man finally collided in the middle of a large park, surrounded by the city’s skyline. The lake shimmered beneath the setting sun, but there was no time for serenity.

Express Man darted around Mega Man with surprising agility, shooting blasts from his wrist with deadly precision. But Mega Man was ready. He anticipated every move, his body moving in perfect sync with the danger.

“You’re not fast enough!” Mega Man shouted.

With a final push, Mega Man caught Express Man’s arm mid-flight, bringing the bot crashing to the ground. The two robots tumbled into the lake, sending up a splash of water.

In the struggle, Express Man’s body began to overheat, sparks flying from his exposed wiring. Mega Man kept up the pressure, delivering hit after hit, until with one final blast, the bot exploded in a shower of sparks and water.

Mega Man surfaced from the lake, soaking wet but unscathed. He retrieved the stolen cash and looked around, surveying the damage. The scene was a mess, but the city was safe—for now.

As Mega Man prepared to leave, a familiar voice echoed from behind.

“You never learn, do you?” Proto Man landed with his red armor gleaming in the setting sun.

Mega Man sighed. “Not you again.”

Proto Man approached, his tone dry. “You’ve got a knack for finding trouble, Mega Man. You’re lucky I was here to finish the job.”

“You didn’t finish anything. I had it under control.”

Proto Man crossed his arms. “Doesn’t matter. I knew you’d need help. Can’t do everything alone, can you?”

Mega Man glared at Proto Man, his frustration mounting. “You always show up when I don’t need you.”

Proto Man’s visor glinted. “You’ll need more than just luck to take on what’s coming. This was just the beginning. Trust me, they’re testing you.”

Mega Man narrowed his eyes. “Testing me?”

Proto Man smirked beneath his helmet. “Someone’s watching. Let’s see how long you last.”

With that, Proto Man turned and disappeared into the shadows, leaving Mega Man alone with his thoughts.

Back in Dr. Light’s lab, Rocky recounted the battle to his mentor. “Express Man’s back, but it wasn’t like last time. Something’s off. He was faster, and the attack was... coordinated. This isn’t just random.”

Dr. Light listened carefully, his face grave. “I’ve been tracking unusual energy readings from decommissioned facilities. It’s possible someone is reactivating old robots—remotely, perhaps.”

Rocky clenched his fist, frustration bubbling to the surface. “Proto Man thinks this is just the beginning. That someone’s trying to wear me down.”

Dr. Light placed a hand on his shoulder, his voice gentle. “Then we prepare. This is bigger than just robots. It’s about protecting the people who rely on you.”

Rocky nodded, but the weight of the words settled heavily in his chest. How long could he keep this up? How many more attacks were waiting around the corner?

As he turned away, he caught sight of a flickering screen in the lab. Dr. Wily’s profile blinked ominously on the monitor, accompanied by the phrase Ready for Field Test.

Chapter Text

The art room buzzed with low chatter and the rhythmic clink of paintbrushes tapping against jars. Afternoon sunlight filtered in through tall windows, casting warm rays across the scattered easels. The smell of acrylic and turpentine hung in the air.

Rocky sat stiffly at his usual station near the back, pencil trembling in his grip as he stared down at a half-finished sketch. Mrs. Ibarra had instructed the class to work on self-portraits, but Rocky’s canvas looked more like a glitching schematic than a face. Lines jagged across the paper, intersecting at strange angles, with geometric fragments that suggested circuitry more than skin.

Beside him, Chelsea was in her own world, her canvas a chaotic swirl of vibrant reds and purples. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t a face—but she looked confident, almost proud.

“Rocky,” she said without looking up, “unless you’re a robot trapped in an art deco dimension, I think you missed the assignment.”

He gave a weak chuckle and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah… just got a lot on my mind.”

Chelsea paused, glancing at him sidelong. “You’ve been like this for weeks. Distant. Jumpy. Weird stuff keeps happening, and you keep pretending it’s all normal.”

Alan, seated a few feet away and clearly eavesdropping, leaned over with a grin. “Maybe Rocky’s been replaced by a robot. Dun dun dun.”

“Cut it out, Alan,” Chelsea snapped, though her tone stayed playful.

Rocky gave a strained smile and turned back to his sketch. But his thoughts were far away. Express Man. That cryptic warning from Proto Man. The weight of secrets he couldn’t share with anyone, not even them.

A quiet beep buzzed on Chelsea’s phone. She checked it—and froze.

“Rocky…” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s Barrage Man. He’s back. And he’s coming here. Right now.”

The blood drained from Rocky’s face. He shot a glance at the clock—still fifteen minutes left in class—and then bolted upright.

Alan blinked. “Wait, what? How do you know that?”

“Stay here,” Rocky muttered, already heading for the door. “Tell Mrs. Ibarra I felt sick.”

“Rocky! Where are you going?!” Chelsea hissed, but he was already gone.

Rocky sprinted down the hallway, dodging a janitor and nearly knocking over a recycling bin. The emergency lights suddenly flickered to life—an automated alarm klaxon began to sound through the PA system.

"This is a Level Two lockdown. All students and staff, shelter in place. This is not a drill."

His stomach turned. It’s happening. Again. He pushed open the rear doors of the gymnasium and ducked behind the equipment shed, far from any cameras.

His hands fumbled with the bracelet hidden beneath his sleeve. With a flash of light and a surge of energy, his body morphed into blue armor and helmet.

Mega Man had arrived.

“Auto, report!” he barked, visor sliding into place.

Auto’s voice crackled in his ear. “Mega Man! Barrage Man just stormed the school grounds. Roll tried to intercept him—he’s chasing her through the courtyard!”

Mega Man’s chest clenched. “Roll’s there?! Is she hurt?”

“She’s holding him off, but he’s closing in fast! You need to move—now!”

Without waiting for another word, Mega Man launched into the air with a blue streak of light, clearing the school building and racing toward the courtyard.

Roll skidded back, one arm shielding her face as Barrage Man unleashed another volley. Explosions rippled across the grass, gouging out chunks of turf and sending dirt flying.

“MOVE, ROLL!”

She dove behind a toppled tree just as a cluster missile detonated nearby, spraying shrapnel. Her arm plating sparked. She gritted her teeth, adjusting a small emitter on her wrist.

“EMP pulse... come on…”

She triggered the pulse, and Barrage Man flinched. His targeting lens fuzzed over for a second—but only a second. He growled and launched another burst.

“You’re in my line of fire, pest. Withdraw.”

“You think I’m going to let you hurt people? Think again!” she snapped, raising her arm to fire her own burst of concussive energy.

It pinged off his shoulder. Not enough.

“Where is he?” she muttered. “Where’s Rocky—”

A plasma shot slammed into Barrage Man’s side, sending him reeling.

Mega Man landed hard, boots cracking the pavement. His eyes locked onto Roll—hurt, scraped—but still standing.

And something inside him snapped into place.

This wasn’t training. This wasn’t protocol.

This was his sister. And no one—no one—hurt her.

The enemy recovered, glaring with fractured optics. “YOU. AGAIN.”

Mega Man didn’t wait. He fired a rapid volley, forcing Barrage Man to shield himself. The blasts deflected, but it gave Roll time to scramble behind a tree for cover.

Barrage Man fired back—green pulses screaming through the air. Mega Man rolled to the side, barely dodging a shot that vaporized part of the stair railing.

They clashed in a storm of energy, metal, and momentum. Mega Man darted in and out, trading blows, using every trick he knew to stay ahead of the brute's relentless power.

But Barrage Man was adapting—getting faster, stronger, angrier.

Roll saw it happen in real-time. His targeting systems narrowed. His steps got surer. He was going to land a hit.

“No!” she shouted, sprinting out from cover.

“Roll, stay back!” Mega Man yelled—but too late.

Barrage Man saw her. He lunged with both fists, cannons glowing.

Mega Man threw himself in front of her, intercepting the strike.

BOOM!

They both went flying. Mega Man hit a wall hard enough to crack the brick. He slid down, armor sparking.

Roll cried out, kneeling beside him. “Mega! Say something!”

His eyes fluttered. The world spun. Static filled his ears. But through it all, he saw her face—frightened. Vulnerable.

No. Not again.

His core surged. Mega Man stood up, slowly but surely, his body damaged but burning with something more powerful than circuits—conviction.

“Get… away… from her.”

His arm cannon charged with a brilliant hum. Electricity crackled around him.

He let the blast fly—a concentrated, focused shot—slamming into Barrage Man’s chest. The explosion knocked the larger robot backward. For the first time, Barrage Man faltered.

Mega Man didn't stop.

He dashed forward, ducking beneath another blast, then vaulted up and slammed his cannon straight into Barrage Man’s power core.

A shockwave erupted.

With a final stuttered cry, Barrage Man toppled like a felled tree, collapsing into a broken heap of wires and smoke.

The emergency sirens wailed in the distance. Drones circled cautiously overhead. Roll limped to Mega Man’s side, clutching her bruised arm.

“Nice of you to drop in,” she said, voice quaking.

Mega Man knelt beside her. “You okay?”

“I’ll live,” she said, trying to smile. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “You came.”

“I always will.”

He deactivated the armor. In a shimmer of light, Rocky emerged again—just a kid, crouched in the aftermath of war.

Roll hugged him, and this time he hugged back, fiercely.

The distant sound of helicopters didn’t reach him.

His thoughts were already turning dark.

His enemies were only getting more dangerous.

And the next battle…

…might strike even closer to home.

Chapter Text

The school courtyard lay scorched and cratered, a patchwork of upturned turf and shattered concrete. Emergency drones hovered in grid formation, scanning debris and deploying repair nanobots. Paramedics ushered students into buses, while security personnel cordoned off the battlefield.

Rocky, back in his civilian clothes, sat on the rear bumper of an ambulance with a thermal blanket draped over his shoulders. His hands trembled—not from injury, but from the weight of what he’d nearly lost.

Roll sat beside him, her left arm in a sling made from gauze and synth-mesh. Despite her attempts to look calm, her fingers kept twitching toward her sidearm. She was wired. Alert. On edge.

“You didn’t have to take that hit for me,” she muttered, watching a drone lift Barrage Man’s smoking chassis onto a containment cart.

Rocky looked down at his scuffed sneakers. “Yeah, I did.”

Roll’s jaw clenched. “You’re not invincible, you know. You can’t just… break yourself every time something gets close to me.”

“I’m not trying to be invincible,” he said quietly. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

They sat in silence. A gust of wind carried the scorched-metal scent away, but the memory lingered like ash.

Later that evening, the command room at Dr. Light’s lab glowed with red warning glyphs. Auto paced in short, frantic loops, antenna twitching.

“Roll’s damaged. Rocky’s overclocked. Barrage Man’s remains are being picked over by federal agents. This is bad, Doc. Really bad!”

Dr. Light stood with his arms folded, watching surveillance feeds from the school. His expression was tight. Grim. “And it’s about to get worse.”

He tapped a console. Glitchy static played across the screen—school security footage. Barrage Man’s attack… and a blurred, flickering frame of Mega Man transforming.

Auto’s eyes bulged. “Oh no. No-no-no-no. Is that what I think it is?”

“Glitch Man,” Light said. “He hacked the school’s network mid-attack. Scraped surveillance logs and corrupted the rest. That means he has it—and he’s keeping it.”

Rocky stepped into the room just in time to hear that. “He knows.”

Light nodded. “We can’t let that footage go public. If your identity is exposed, it won’t just be you in danger—it’ll be every ally we’ve got.”

“Then I stop him,” Rocky said, voice quiet but sharp. “Tonight.”

Roll stepped in after him, still in bandages. “You’re not going alone.”

“You’re still healing,” Rocky protested.

“Which is exactly why I’m not sitting this out,” she shot back. “We don’t know what Glitch Man has planned. You’ll need backup.”

Auto looked between them and groaned. “You two are gonna give me a permanent oil leak…”

Light placed a hand on Rocky’s shoulder before he left. “Rocky… I know you want to protect everyone. But don’t fracture yourself trying to hold everything together.”

Rocky hesitated. Then nodded, silent.

Meanwhile, Chelsea sat alone in her bedroom, scrolling through network updates and scrubbed footage from the school attack. Most of it was static—blurred by Glitch Man or censored by authorities. But one frame stood out: a blue streak leaping over the school roof.

She enlarged the image. Squinted. The posture… the arc of the leap… it felt familiar. Too familiar.

Her mind flashed back—Rocky, panicked, shouting at her to get down just before the explosion. The way he moved. The way his voice broke.

A knock at her door pulled her attention back. Her mom peeked in. “Honey, your friend Alan’s asking if you’re okay. He’s worried.”

Chelsea forced a smile. “I’m fine, Mom. Just thinking.”

As the door closed, her smile vanished. Her breath caught.

“Rocky,” she whispered. “What are you not telling me?”

She stared at the frame again, now glowing faintly in the dark.

And suddenly, she wasn’t sure if she was scared… or betrayed.

That night, Rocky and Roll stood atop a transmission tower near the city’s edge. Rain fell in light sheets, pattering against their armor. Below, the power grid complex shimmered with faint purple light—Glitch Man’s doing.

“He’s using the old comms relay to send encrypted files,” Auto said in their earpieces. “The footage could be anywhere in the cloud within the hour.”

Mega Man’s visor glowed. “Then we intercept before that happens.”

They dropped in silence, stealth modules engaged.

Inside, the relay station was a labyrinth of corrupted light. False corridors looped endlessly. Holograms flickered like ghosts—decoys, illusions, glitches coded to confuse and distract.

Roll tapped her wrist, launching a data-pulse. “I’ll jam his broadcast lines. You go for the core server.”

“Be careful,” Rocky whispered.

“I’m always careful,” she said with a grin—then slipped into the shadows.

Mega Man moved through the glitchscape, code fragmenting and stitching around him. Static whispered like wind.

Then—laughter. Static-drenched. Cold.

“Ahh, little blue reboot. I thought you’d come.”

Glitch Man coalesced from ceiling panels like a ghost in a corrupted mirror, his body phasing and fragmenting in erratic pulses.

“You’ve been such a fun secret, Mega Man... or should I say... Rocky,” he said. “But secrets are currency. And I’m ready to cash in.”

Mega Man fired—but the blast passed through a shimmer. Glitch Man multiplied, three copies racing across space in jittery, impossible angles.

“Catch me if you can.”

The battle erupted into chaos.

Glitch Man twisted the room into recursion traps and infinite loops. One moment he was in the walls—laughing, flickering—the next, he dragged Mega Man into a time-loop that replayed the same five seconds of combat over and over.

“Auto! He’s running me through a recursion field!” Mega Man grunted, deflecting the same plasma bolt again and again.

“I’m on it—isolating his echo pattern! If I can fragment the loop, it’ll destabilize him!”

Elsewhere, Roll burst into the transmission chamber. A corrupted figure stood waiting—her own likeness, distorted and glitching, its face a jagged smear of smiles.

“Don’t you ever get tired of pretending?” it whispered in her own voice. “Of hiding behind backup routines and big brother’s shadow?”

Roll flinched—then shot it square in the chest.

The mimic screeched as it shattered into shards of distorted code, but not before grabbing her arm in a burning vice. She screamed, twisted, and rammed her elbow into its neck.

“Not today.”

She yanked the primary conduit free—sparks bursting as the transmitter hummed and died.

“Upload link severed!” she called. “Rocky, now!”

Auto’s voice cut in, sharp: “Loop’s down! Core’s exposed—strike now while he’s unstable!”

Mega Man surged forward, cannon glowing white-blue. “Time to pull the plug!”

He dove through a phasing wall, lined up with Glitch Man’s fracturing form, and fired a compressed pulse straight into his core.

The virus howled as its code disintegrated, peeling away in layers like digital skin. Glitch Man’s final screech bent into unreadable data, his body collapsing into static.

Then—silence.

And a slow, soft reboot hum.

Rocky dropped to one knee, panting. “Tell me that did it.”

Auto came back, relieved. “No trace of the footage. The broadcast relay’s clean.”

“But…” Roll added, stepping beside him, “I’m still detecting low-level packet drift. Some corrupted fragments may’ve slipped through.”

Auto grumbled. “So we might not have seen the last of him.”

Mega Man stood, jaw tight. “Then we’ll be ready.”

Roll bumped her shoulder against his. “Told you we make a good team.”

Later, at home, Rocky sat by his window, watching rain trail down the glass. His hands were still for once, resting on his lap.

Downstairs, he could hear Dr. Light on a call—likely with officials, spinning another explanation for another unexplained skirmish.

In the hallway, Roll watched him from the doorway.

“You okay?” she asked.

Rocky didn’t look away from the rain. “No,” he said. “But I will be.”

She nodded. “That’s good enough… for now.”

He caught his reflection faintly in the glass. Flickering. A fracture in the mask.

More enemies would come. More secrets to protect.

But tonight, at least, his identity—and those he loved—were safe.

For now.

Chapter Text

The school was quiet in the days after the attack. Too quiet.

The courtyard, once charred and cratered, had been patched and re-sodded by repair drones. Students whispered in hushed tones around corners, their stories twisting and growing like wild vines—from government psy-ops to rogue Wilybots to an elaborate prank involving movie props.

Chelsea didn’t believe any of it.

She walked the halls with her usual steady stride, backpack slung over one shoulder, but her eyes never stopped scanning. Watching. Waiting. Rocky avoided her gaze whenever they crossed paths, offering only weak waves or mumbled excuses. Roll had taken to skipping lunch altogether.

For once, Alan noticed.

“You’re really not talking to them?” he asked one afternoon over a tray of synthetic chow. “Even Rocky?”

Chelsea didn’t answer immediately. Her fingers tapped restlessly against the tray’s edge as her gaze fixed on the untouched food.

“There’s something he’s not telling me,” she said quietly. “And I think it matters.”

Alan raised an eyebrow. “You mean, like… secret-identity matters?”

She flinched, caught off guard.

He blinked. “Wait, I was joking—”

Chelsea stood abruptly, grabbing her tray. “I’ll figure it out.”

Alan watched her go, confused and a little worried.

Back at Light Labs, Rocky sat at the diagnostic bay, armor plates stripped and stacked neatly beside him. His undersuit clung tight, scarred and scorched in places. Dr. Light passed a scanner over his chest, frowning.

“You’re still running hot,” he muttered. “Cooling node in your fusion core’s still unstable. Must’ve been that loop recursion from Glitch Man.”

Rocky winced. “It’ll stabilize. It always does.”

Dr. Light gave him a long look. “That’s not the point, son. You’re adapting to strain — but the strain isn’t going away.”

Auto rolled up, arms full of coolant packs. “Plus, you’ve got about a dozen microfractures in your left femur assembly. Which you somehow didn’t mention.”

Rocky shrugged. “Didn’t feel it.”

“Not the flex you think it is,” Auto muttered, slapping a pack onto his thigh.

Roll stood nearby, arms crossed. She hadn’t spoken much since the relay station fight—not out of anger, but because she hadn’t found the words yet.

“I’m fine,” Rocky said, eyes flicking between them.

“You’re not,” Roll replied flatly. “You haven’t been since Barrage Man.”

That name landed like a hammer.

Rocky looked down. “I just need to keep moving. If I stop…”

“…You’ll fall apart?” Dr. Light finished gently. “You’re not alone, Rocky. You never were.”

A silence stretched.

Roll reached into her satchel and dropped a small datachip onto the table.

“Encrypted node dump from the relay,” she said. “Auto couldn’t trace it, but I found a fragment. One Glitch Man didn’t scrub.”

Dr. Light plugged it in. A blurred, flickering image appeared on the lab screen—warped and unstable, but unmistakable.

Chelsea’s face. Enlarged. Tagged.

[TARGET RECOGNIZED: CHELSEA SIMMS]
[PRIORITY: OBSERVE | CATALOG | BAIT]

The room fell silent.

“…He marked her,” Rocky whispered. “As leverage.”

Roll’s voice was steady but soft. “That’s why she needs to know.”

Rocky didn’t answer. His fists clenched.

That evening, Chelsea sat at her desk, multiple windows open across her screen. The walls were plastered with school posters and a few photos of her and Rocky and Alan from last semester’s science fair. One picture—her favorite—lay face down.

She replayed the single frame she’d pulled from the datachip. The leap. The blur. The arc.

She slowed the footage. Still frame. Enhance.

It wasn’t proof. Not really.

But it was enough.

When a soft knock came at her window, she didn’t jump.

Outside, Rocky stood, hoodie pulled over his damp hair, rain falling in slow drops around him.

Chelsea hesitated, then opened it.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

She folded her arms. “You’re late.”

“Yeah,” he said, voice low. “I’m… a lot of things.”

The silence between them stretched thin.

“You’re Mega Man,” she said bluntly.

He didn’t flinch.

“Since when?”

He looked down. “Since always.”

She exhaled sharply, the breath shaky. “So all those times you vanished. The excuses. The injuries. The weird static on your phone…”

“I wanted to tell you,” he said. “But I couldn’t. Not until—”

“You don’t get to flip that switch, Rocky,” she snapped. “You don’t get to decide when someone matters enough to know the truth.”

His eyes fell. “…I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want ‘sorry.’ I want to understand,” she said, voice cracking. “Why all the secrets? Why the cover-up?”

“If my enemies knew I attended Mega City Junior High, they would target it nonstop. I thought keeping quiet would keep you and everyone else safe… but—” He pulled a cracked datachip from his pocket, placing it gently on her desk.

“This is what Glitch Man used to tag you,” he said. “He was going to use you to get to me.”

She stared at the chip. Then at him.

“So now I’m their bait?”

“No. You’re my friend,” Rocky said, voice barely above a whisper. “I only wanted to protect everyone from harm.”

Her voice dropped to a fragile whisper. “And in doing that, you lied to me. To Alan. To everyone.”

He had no answer.

After a long moment, she looked away. “You should go, Rocky.”

He lingered, like he wanted to say more — but finally nodded and stepped back into the night.

Chelsea closed the window and locked it.

She sat on her bed, staring down at the chip in her palm.

Far below the city, in a secure containment vault once belonging to Dr. Wily, flickering red lights danced across dark server banks.

A corrupted frame blinked into focus. A shard of Glitch Man’s code—fractured but alive—pulsed once.

Then again.

Then whispered, ragged and faint:

“Restore… me…”

The rain hadn’t let up.

Rocky stood on the rooftop across from Chelsea’s apartment long after the light in her room went out. Her silhouette disappeared behind the blinds. She hadn’t come back to the window.

He waited anyway.

He didn’t know why.

Eventually, the sky lightened. Morning came.

At Light Labs, Roll found him on the catwalk above the main bay, sitting against the wall with his helmet beside him, knees drawn to his chest. His eyes were open but unfocused—staring somewhere between the floor and last night’s memories.

She approached quietly and sat beside him.

“She didn’t say anything?” Roll asked softly.

Rocky shook his head.

“Not after she told me to leave.”

Roll said nothing, letting the silence grow.

“I thought… if I explained, she’d understand,” Rocky said quietly. “That it would fix something.”

“You didn’t tell her to fix it,” Roll said. “You told her to protect her.”

He hugged his arms tighter. “And now she hates me.”

“She’s hurt,” Roll corrected. “And scared. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t care.”

Rocky didn’t answer.

“…When I looked at her,” he said after a long pause, “I saw everything I could lose. And I still waited too long.”

His voice cracked. “She looked right through me, Roll.”

Roll put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t react.

“Come back inside. You need rest.”

“I don’t feel tired,” he said flatly. “Just… wrong.”

Roll stood. “We’re going to help you, Rocky. But you have to let us.”

Days passed.

Rocky trained less. Ate less. Slept in armor or not at all.

He went through the motions — combat drills, diagnostics, maintenance checks — but it was mechanical. Empty. His movements lost their usual spark, as if he were controlling himself from behind glass.

Auto noticed. “Your servo reaction time’s down 12%. You’re running hot but not fighting. That’s not burnout. That’s…”

He trailed off.

Rocky didn’t respond. Just stared at the wall.

Even Rush avoided him sometimes, curling at the edge of the room like he was afraid of making things worse.

Finally, Dr. Light intervened.

He found Rocky in the garage, helmet on, idle on a recharge platform he hadn’t activated.

“You’re scaring us, Rock,” he said plainly.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” the doctor said gently. “And it’s okay not to be.”

Rocky didn’t move.

“She was the one person who saw me. Just… me. Not Mega Man. Not a lab kid. Not a hero.”

He looked up, eyes hollow. “And now she can’t even look at me. Nor does she want to.”

Light hesitated.

“Then show her that you still see her. That you trust her enough to let her in,” he said softly. “Even if she never forgives you, you don’t have to hide anymore.”

Rocky’s jaw tightened.

“…What if being Mega Man means I lose everything else?”

Dr. Light knelt beside him.

“Then we fight to make sure it doesn’t.”

Meanwhile, Chelsea sat alone in her room, the datachip still untouched beside her computer.

She hadn’t told Alan.

She hadn’t answered any messages.

She didn’t know what she wanted.

Some part of her was still angry. Still hurt. Not because Rocky was Mega Man — but because he didn’t trust her enough to handle the truth. Because she saw the pieces long before he said anything, and she hated being right.

She opened a new tab and hesitated before typing:

Mega Man — incidents near Mega City Junior High

The search results poured in—explosions, battles, patterns she’d never noticed before—each headline a sharp reminder of the chaos she’d been kept in the dark about.

She clicked through them one by one until something caught her eye.

A name.

Waltz.

Chelsea’s breath caught as her screen flickered for a split second. The glow from the monitor cast strange shadows on the wall.

She swallowed.

She had questions now.

And no answers.

Chapter Text

The warning came from SkyTracker surveillance at 3:12 A.M.

A distress beacon. Industrial Sector 9. A long-abandoned robotics factory — recently reactivated without clearance. No workers scheduled. No drone patrols.

Too precise. Too quiet.

A trap.

Rocky stared at the flickering alert on his HUD, fingers clenched tight on the console. His chest ached—not from the cold or the weight of his armor—but from a deeper, heavier pain gnawing at him. The silence around him wasn’t peace. It was a vacuum sucking out every last scrap of hope.

I don’t deserve backup. Not anymore.

Without a word, Mega Man vanished into the night.

By the time Dr. Light and Roll noticed the active mission tag buried in the logs, Rocky was already gone.

Inside the crumbling factory, Mega Man moved like a shadow — silent, relentless, every step measured against the echo of his own failures. The stale air was thick with rust and chemical coolant, the only sound the slow drip from broken pipes and the faint hum of forgotten machinery stirring to life.

His HUD blinked erratically, the usual steady stream of data now flickering red warnings. Subsystems glitched. Neural lag spiked. Emotional sync fractured.

Keep going. You can fix this. You have to.

He paused at a junction and a sudden movement caught his eye — turret arrays hidden high in the rafters, their barrels swiveling toward him like hungry predators.

He didn’t blink.

He didn’t flinch.

He moved faster.

Mines triggered in the corridor ahead. Glowing red orbs of motion-activated explosives that could shred armor and flesh alike. Rocky’s boots barely whispered over the rusted metal grates as he dodged and weaved.

Then, the signal pinged — familiar but corrupted.

Glitch Man.

The voice slithered into Rocky’s head, cold and venomous, a poison that felt like it knew every fracture in his mind.

“Still chasing ghosts, little brother? She left you behind.”

“You’re not a boy. You’re not a hero. You’re a lie with a pulse.”

Rocky’s chest tightened, a storm raging inside his neural core. His fists clenched until the metal in his gloves creaked.

No. Not this time.

He fired, the charged blasts tearing into the shadows — but Glitch Man teleported with a sickening crackle, landing a brutal strike to Rocky’s side. His armor’s integrity faltered; circuits sparking beneath the cracked plating.

Warning: Coolant leak. Plasma destabilizing.

Pain flashed sharp and electric. His HUD blinked in red warnings — neural lag climbing, emotional sync unraveling. The enemy’s voice crawled inside his head like cold fire.

“Let me finish you. Let me free you.”

Rocky dropped to one knee, breath ragged, system alerts cascading.

And then—

“Back off, freakshow.”

Chelsea’s voice cut through the chaos.

At her makeshift command center, Chelsea sat surrounded by holographic overlays and glitching audio feeds. Her fingers flew across a hijacked school server, deciphering encrypted emotional vectors and fragmented AI code.

The more she uncovered about Waltz, the more the horror settled in her gut.

It wasn’t just a virus. It was a fail-deadly psychological weapon — a feedback cascade virus designed to mimic empathy, trained on pain and grief, weaponizing emotions to tear bots apart from the inside.

And Glitch Man had it.

Rocky talked to it.

It knows him.

Her screen flickered violently.

EMERGENCY BEACON – ACTIVE
Target: Glitch Man
Operator: MEGA MAN
Status: NO SUPPORT REGISTERED

Her heart hammered.

He went in alone.

Without hesitation, she grabbed the chip, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and ran.

Chelsea emerged through a maintenance shaft, wielding a reconfigured utility cannon and a pulse jammer she’d cobbled together in haste.

The factory’s dim light flickered on the battered Mega Man, his armor cracked and sparking, a faint trail of coolant leaking down his side.

“Got your number this time,” she said, tossing the jammer to him. “Copy its frequency and stack your buster on top.”

Rocky’s eyes met hers — a mix of exhaustion, guilt, and something fragile he barely recognized: relief.

“You shouldn’t be here—”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t go on suicide missions alone,” Chelsea snapped, breathless but fierce, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Glitch Man shrieked — a twisted, modulated sound that echoed like nails on metal — and convulsed under the jammer’s pulse.

The shadows around them warped and flickered. Then, with a final crackle, Glitch Man vanished into the walls.

Outside the factory, the cold night air hit Rocky’s face as he slumped onto a broken crate. Chelsea crouched beside him, wrapping a rough bandage around his arm.

Neither spoke at first.

The silence was heavy — not with peace, but with all the words they couldn’t say.

Finally, Rocky whispered, “You saved me.”

Chelsea’s fingers tightened on the cloth. “I wasn’t going to.”

“I know.”

“But I saw what you were fighting. What it did to you.” She held out the chip. “I want in.”

Rocky’s breath caught.

“You mean—?”

“I don’t forgive you. Not yet,” she said, voice low. “But I believe you. And if that thing’s coming back for you again, I want a say in how we stop it.”

He swallowed hard. Eyes stinging with something between shame and hope.

“I missed you.”

Chelsea stood, slinging her bag over one shoulder.

“Don’t make me miss you permanently, Rock.”

She offered her hand.

He took it.

The communication line chimed — faint, but urgent.

“Mega Man. Are you alright?”

Dr. Light’s voice came first — clipped with worry, barely masking the panic beneath.

Roll’s face shimmered next to his, eyes red-rimmed, brows furrowed.

“Rocky, you didn’t answer any of our calls! Your vitals tanked! We thought—”

“I’m okay,” Rocky said, voice rough, still slumped against the alley’s rubble. The emergency patch Chelsea had applied was holding — barely. His systems still pinged irregularly.

He turned his face away from the screen, hiding the exhaustion. “Took a hit. Not too bad.”

Roll’s gaze was sharp, unrelenting. “You lied, Rocky. You left. You could’ve—!”

“Roll,” Dr. Light interrupted gently. “We’ll talk about this later. Right now, you need to come home.”

Rocky glanced at Chelsea, who stood quietly, staring up at the sky.

“She helped. I wouldn’t have made it without her.”

Dr. Light nodded, voice steady despite the concern. “Acknowledged. Initiating return protocol.”

A glowing pad materialized beneath Rocky, energy humming softly. Another appeared under Chelsea’s feet.

“Wait—!” she protested.

“You’ll be home in your room in three seconds,” Dr. Light said firmly. “No one will notice you left. It’s better this way.”

Chelsea’s eyes flickered to Rocky — a silent exchange loaded with everything left unsaid.

Then they vanished.

Back in the lab, Rocky lay stripped down to his undersuit as the scanners hummed, monitoring his fragile systems.

Dr. Light’s face was tight with worry. Roll stood nearby, arms crossed, biting back tears.

“Your neuro-sync was destabilizing,” Light said softly. “If you’d stayed longer… your systems might’ve failed completely.”

“I know.”

A heavy silence.

Finally, Dr. Light asked, “Rocky… what were you thinking?”

Rocky’s voice was flat, empty. “I wasn’t. Not really. I just… needed to do something.”

Roll’s voice cracked, soft but fierce: “To get yourself hurt? Or to prove you’re still a hero after Glitch Man—”

Rocky’s shoulders slumped. “Neither. I didn’t want anyone else getting pulled into it. I thought—”

“You thought you had to suffer to make up for it,” Roll said quietly. “That’s not protecting anyone.”

He closed his eyes, swallowed the lump in his throat.

I’m tired of feeling broken. But maybe... maybe I don’t have to carry this alone.

Dr. Light pulled up a hologram showing the corrupted signature Chelsea extracted — a chaotic swirl of code marked WALTZ.AIC-3.

“Chelsea gave us something,” he said. “Something dangerous. This isn’t just a virus. It’s a mimic AI. It doesn’t attack with brute force — it manipulates emotion, simulates trauma, rewires bots to feel pain over and over.”

Rocky’s fists clenched, nails digging into his palms.

“It got into Glitch Man. It talked to me. It… understood me.”

Light’s expression darkened. “Then we’re facing something beyond a rogue bot.”

Roll stepped closer, placing a hand on Rocky’s.

“We’re going to stop it. Together. No more solo hero runs.”

Rocky didn’t say anything for a moment.

Then, slowly, he looked up.

“Okay.”

She squeezed his hand.

And for the first time in a long while, the silence between them didn’t feel like an abyss — but a fragile bridge.

Chapter Text

The lair was cold.

Not because of any climate control failure—Dr. Wily’s underground base was meticulously maintained, if chaotically designed. No, the cold came from the stillness, the pause between fury and action.

Waltz stood at the center of the war room, her holographic form glitching slightly as she analyzed the breach report. Glitch Man’s corrupted memory fragment had been accessed. Data had been pulled. And not just by Light Labs.

“Her,” Waltz hissed, voice split across multiple modulations. “The girl. The hacker.”

Dr. Wily, pacing behind her, clenched a wrench in one hand. “That meddling brat? She’s got no business poking around in my codebase!”

“She didn’t just poke,” Waltz growled. “She extracted. The Waltz node was compromised.”

Wily slammed the wrench onto the table. “Then it’s time for a message. A warning.”

The chamber lights dimmed.

From the shadows stepped Scalp Man.

Quiet. Calculating. His skeletal armor gleamed with surgical precision. A thin needle-like cable extended from his wrist, twitching like a scorpion’s tail.

“Retrieve the girl,” Wily ordered. “And the boy with her. Alan, was it? The one who doesn’t know what’s going on. Make it hurt. Make it personal. But clean.”

Waltz’s flickering eyes narrowed. “No witnesses.”

Scalp Man bowed once.

From the rafters, hidden in a nest of discarded tech, Beat watched.

The birdbot twitched his metal wings, recorded what he needed, and vanished in a shimmering pulse of blue.

The soft ping of the teleport pad startled Roll.

“Beat?” she said, peering around from the hallway. The blue bird wobbled on the console, wings flapping with frantic energy.

Dr. Light appeared next. “What in the world?”

Beat launched into a flurry of electronic chirps, squeaks, and desperate wingbeats. A small holo-vid played from his eye unit—grainy, distorted, but unmistakable. Waltz. Wily. The name Chelsea.

Roll’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh no.”

“Alan too,” Dr. Light said grimly. “This is retaliation.”

Rocky walked in just in time to catch that last word.

His stomach dropped.

08:12 A.M.

The school bell rang.

Rocky sat in homeroom, pen frozen over his notebook. Ms. Dalca was talking about quadratic something. He didn’t hear it.

All he could hear was Beat’s warning. All he could see was Scalp Man’s profile flashing in a threat file.

Chelsea was two rows over. Arms crossed. Eyes on her desk. She hadn’t spoken all morning.

Alan sat in the back, laughing with his friends, blissfully unaware.

I have to keep them safe.

The thought looped over and over in Rocky’s head. Every tick of the wall clock felt like a detonator.

He scanned the class. No strangers. No teachers acting weird.

Not yet.

10:04 A.M.

Second period chemistry. Rocky swapped seats to be closer to Chelsea. She noticed.

“Don’t hover,” she said under her breath.

“Wily knows you hacked him. You and Alan are now his targets.”

Her pencil snapped in her grip.

“What?”

“Beat heard it. Scalp Man’s coming. Today.”

She stiffened. Didn’t look at him. But she nodded.

Alan walked by on the way to the sink, whistling.

Rocky flinched.

He doesn’t even know. And if I screw this up, he won’t get the chance to.

Chelsea’s mad at me for hiding that I was Mega Man. Alan’s clueless at what happened. And I’m supposed to stop a killer robot from kidnapping them between second period and lunch? Great.

11:30 A.M.

Lunch.

He watched Alan like a hawk.

Chelsea pretended nothing was wrong, sitting at the far table with her laptop open. Rocky sat nearby, tray untouched.

Then he saw him.

A man in a custodian uniform. Too tall. Too straight-backed. Moving with surgical rhythm.

Too precise. Too clean. Not one hair out of place. That’s not a janitor. That’s a scalpel in a mop bucket.

Scalp Man.

Rocky stood.

Chelsea snapped her laptop shut.

Alan looked up, confused. “What? What is it?”

Then the fire alarm tripped.

Panic erupted. Students scrambled. Smoke poured in from somewhere—a diversion, artificial.

Chelsea locked eyes with Rocky.

Go.

He vaulted over the table.

Scalp Man moved. Too fast. He snatched Alan by the collar.

Rocky tackled him, buster crackling to life, civilian clothes tearing as he activated his armor mid-roll.

Chelsea activated her jammer from under her jacket. The pulse wave slammed into Scalp Man’s core, knocking him sideways.

Alan screamed. “WHAT IS HAPPENING?!”

Chelsea barked, “Get behind me!” but Alan froze, eyes wide.

He’s in shock. He doesn’t know who to trust. He’s going to get himself killed if I don’t move fast.

“RUN!” Rocky shouted.

Scalp Man recovered, eyes glowing. No words. Just intent.

Students poured out around them as emergency lights flickered.

Rocky stood between Scalp Man and the exit, Chelsea and Alan behind him.

Heartbeat in my ears. Boots anchored. No more running. This is the line.

“You want them?” Rocky growled. “You go through me.”

Scalp Man extended his needle-arm.

Chelsea whispered, “Alan’s in this because of me… he doesn’t even know what I did.”

“As you wish,” Scalp Man said.

Chapter Text

The floor vibrated.

Not from footsteps, but from tension—pure, humming, killing intent radiating from the synthetic monster in front of them.

Scalp Man raised his needle-arm. It telescoped with a snap-hiss, tipped with a vibrating drill-point that shimmered faintly with destabilization energy.

Alan gasped, frozen in place behind Chelsea.

“I said RUN!” Rocky yelled again, throwing himself forward—buster blazing to life, a plasma bolt aimed square at Scalp Man’s face.

The killer bot ducked, twisted like a coiled snake, and struck.

Rocky’s buster arm went up just in time—CLANG!—the needle scraped across his forearm plating, sending sparks into the air.

“You should not have interfered,” Scalp Man said, almost politely.

He swept low. His cable tail lashed out and wrapped around Rocky’s ankle, yanking him off balance and slamming him into a row of lockers.

“Rocky!” Chelsea screamed.

She shoved Alan behind the nearest bench and reached into her hoodie pocket, triggering the failsafe device she’d prepared—just in case.

A pulse emitter disguised as a smartphone detonated a burst of EM static.

Scalp Man staggered. His arm twitched, momentarily desynchronized.

“NOW!” she shouted. “Move it!”

Alan finally bolted, but his gaze stayed locked on Rocky—who was already scrambling to his feet, armor dented, jaw clenched.

He fired again. A rapid three-shot burst. One struck Scalp Man’s shoulder, melting a groove in the plating.

Scalp Man didn’t even flinch.

“Student evacuation detected,” the robot intoned. “Lethal force authorized.”

He reached out again—faster than before—and caught Rocky by the collar. The next blow would have gutted him—

WHAM.

A cafeteria tray slammed into Scalp Man’s head.

Alan stood behind him, arm still extended, eyes wide with terror and adrenaline.

“Let him GO!”

Rocky took the opening. He rammed his buster straight into Scalp Man’s abdomen and overloaded the core—point-blank.

The explosion wasn’t big, but it was enough.

Scalp Man flew backward into the far wall, crashing through lockers and plaster like a missile.

“Chelsea!” Rocky shouted. “NOW!”

She grabbed Alan’s wrist and pulled him toward the nearest stairwell.

Rocky followed, limping slightly. His knee joint sparked.

“Emergency beacon,” he gasped, fumbling at his backpack. “Light coded—one-time teleport. I was told not to use it unless—”

“Use it!” Chelsea barked.

They reached the second floor landing. The hallway behind them exploded—Scalp Man punched through the floor below, claws scraping as he launched upward.

He was relentless. Surgical.

“Split up!” Chelsea yelled. “He can’t follow both!”

“No!” Rocky countered, slamming the beacon onto the ground. “We leave together!”

The beacon flashed.

Scalp Man lunged—

Time slowed.

Alan saw Rocky throw his arm around Chelsea’s waist. Saw the flash of blue light.

Felt the pull of the teleport catch him too.

Then—

White.
Crackling static.
A weightless fall.

The trio landed in a heap. Rocky groaned. His armor sparked. His buster smoked.

Chelsea rolled out of his grasp and immediately checked Alan—whose face had gone pale.

“You okay?” she asked.

Alan stared at her. Then at Rocky. Then down at the light-scored pad beneath them.

“You’re—Mega Man.”

Rocky winced.

Alan looked at Chelsea. “And you knew?”

The silence stretched.

“Only for a couple days,” Chelsea said. “I was just as mad as you probably are.”

Alan staggered to his feet. “I—I don’t even… who was that guy?”

“I’ll explain everything,” Rocky said, struggling to stand. “Just… give me a minute…”

He collapsed against the wall, hand clutched around his ribs.

Roll came sprinting in, followed by Dr. Light.

“Oh no. You used the emergency beacon?”

“We had no choice,” Chelsea said. “Scalp Man came. He was going to kill us.”

Light’s face darkened. “Then this war has escalated again.”

Alan looked at all of them—Light, Roll, the tech everywhere, the scars on Rocky’s armor.

And he realized:

Nothing in his world was normal anymore.

Chapter Text

"Alan, just breathe—"
“Don’t! Don’t tell me to breathe!” he snapped, voice cracking. “You’re Mega Man? This whole time?! And you didn’t tell me?!”

Rocky winced.

“I wanted to. I tried. But it wasn’t safe—”

“Not safe? Some mad scientist tried to KILL me today, Rocky!”

“I know. I—”

“You don’t get to ‘I know’ this!” Alan’s voice broke. “You let me get pulled into this! Me and Chelsea! By keeping your identity a secret, you inadvertently let Wily come after us!”

Chelsea, quiet in the corner, finally spoke. “We didn’t let anything happen, Alan. We’re trying to stop him.”

“By lying to me?” He turned on her now. “Both of you?!”

Rocky stepped forward, but Alan stepped back.

“I needed my best friend,” Alan said, quieter now. “Not some robot superhero carrying a pile of secrets.”

And then he left.

The Fortress was silent.

Scalp Man knelt before the thrones of metal and code.

Dr. Wily tapped a clawed finger against the side of his chair, jaw tight.

Waltz hovered above the dais like a phantom, lines of corrupted data trailing her body.

“You failed,” she said simply.

“I was interrupted,” Scalp Man replied. “Unexpected defenses. The girl had a jammer. Mega Man was disguised among the civilians.”

“You were programmed for adaptation,” Waltz’s voice layered over itself, high and low, discordant. “You were told to make it clean.”

“No witnesses,” Wily hissed. “Instead, you brought us footage. Exposure. Backlash.”

“I can return now,” Scalp Man said, rising. “They are vulnerable. Give me the order.”

“No,” Waltz said.

Wily stood.

“You don’t get to ask for another chance.”

The lights flickered. Scalp Man froze.

Waltz's body shimmered, transforming into wire-thin tendrils that stabbed downward—into Scalp Man’s neural ports.

He didn’t scream. But his fingers twitched. His optics dimmed.

“Consider this... recalibration,” Waltz said.

She withdrew.

Scalp Man slumped, sparks dancing along his spinal plates.

“Get out of my sight,” Wily growled.

Scalp Man staggered to his feet and limped into the shadows.

Waltz's form reconstituted into a jagged silhouette. “They’re adapting too quickly. Light’s spawn grows bolder.”

“We escalate,” Wily said. “Next strike... we don’t aim for friends. We aim for legacy.”

Waltz’s smile was like static. “Then let’s burn down what’s left.”

Back at Light Labs, Rocky stared at the screen.

Alan had blocked his messages.

Chapter Text

Alan sat on the edge of the school courtyard’s old planter wall, elbows on knees, eyes on the scuffed pavement below. The filtered sun cast flickering shadows from the overhead solar panels, but he barely registered them. His cello case lay beside him, unopened. A bottle of water sat forgotten near his feet, condensation pooling like sweat.

He’d been quiet all day. Not because he didn’t have questions—he had too many. Because if he opened his mouth, he didn’t trust what might come out.

They had lied to him.

Chelsea. Rocky. Everyone.

It wasn’t just about the attack. It was about the look in Rocky’s eyes right before it happened. The frantic way he’d yelled. The sheer desperation in his voice, like protecting Alan had been his only concern in the world.

He didn’t understand why. Not at first.

Until Chelsea had pulled him aside after the chaos, her voice tight. Her eyes somewhere else.

“He didn’t want you to get hurt. Because he—Rocky... cares for our safety. He always has.”

Alan hadn’t known what to say. Still didn’t. All he could do was sit here now, as the world moved on around him, his chest tangled in wires he didn’t know how to untangle.

He looked up only once, when Chelsea approached from across the lot.

She offered a hesitant smile. "Hey. You doing okay?"

Alan gave a half-hearted shrug. "Sure. Just… taking it in."

She didn’t push. Didn’t sit next to him. She just nodded and walked past, understanding that whatever needed to be said would have to come later.

Maybe.

Rocky hadn’t moved from the couch in the Light Labs lounge in nearly two hours. The hoodie swallowed his frame, sleeves hanging past his hands. His eyes stared blankly at the TV on the wall—muted, showing security feeds, then weather, then nothing at all.

He hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t checked in with Dr. Light. Hadn’t responded to Beat, who had been hovering anxiously like a worried little brother.

He kept replaying the fight.

Scalp Man’s needle just missing Alan’s neck.

The way Alan had looked at him—panicked, scared. Confused.

The moment Chelsea's jammer had saved them, but Alan had still screamed, not just in fear—but in betrayal.

It hadn’t been enough. Nothing had been enough.

He’d failed again.

Roll found him later, curled up inside one of the garage’s decommissioned mechs. The lights were dim, casting long shadows across the rusted tools and spare parts. He didn’t even acknowledge her footsteps.

“Rocky?” she said gently, kneeling beside the open hatch.

He barely turned his head.

“I broke it, Roll.”

“What did you break?”

“Everything.”

She didn’t say he was wrong. She just took his hand, even as it trembled.

“Then let someone help you fix it.”

The lair was silent.

Scalp Man knelt in the center of the war room, the flicker of Wily’s monitors dancing across his battered frame. One optic sensor blinked erratically. His needle-arm was dented. His internal stabilizers sputtered.

Waltz stood behind him, her flickering form pacing slowly, methodically. Not angry. Not yet. Just disappointed in a way that felt more dangerous.

“For the last time, you failed,” she said flatly.

“I was intercepted,” Scalp Man replied, his voice devoid of emotion.

Wily slammed his fist on the table. “By a robot kid with a backpack and teenage hormones, AND his overqualified love interest!”

Waltz lifted a hand, silencing him. “It doesn’t matter. We learn. We adapt.”

She turned toward another monitor and brought up the blueprint of a neural core buried beneath Light Labs.

“Protocol Blackout,” she said, her tone hardening. “We isolate the AI. We separate him from his source. No emotional leverage? Fine. Let’s remove him from the network.”

Wily leaned forward, intrigued. “You’re talking about frying his neural link?”

“Not frying. Overwriting. Corrupting his root memory. Once we infect the Light Core, Mega Man will be nothing but a puppet—or nothing at all.”

Wily chuckled. “Now that sounds poetic.”

Scalp Man said nothing. He simply stood, bowed his head, and vanished into the dark.

The wind was crisp outside Light Labs. Alan stood near the edge of the street, just outside the gated entrance. He stared up at the building—sleek, gleaming, a monument to progress.

A monument full of secrets.

He took a step forward.

Then stopped.

His heart thudded in his chest, a warning. He wasn’t ready. Not to confront Rocky. Not to confront himself.

He turned and walked away.

High up in the window, Beat watched silently, his tiny claws pressed to the glass. He gave a single, worried chirp.

Rocky’s room was dark save for the glow of the muted television. He lay on his side, facing the screen, the flickering light dancing across his expressionless face.

The footage played again: the evacuation footage, blurred silhouettes running, headlines scrolling beneath.

[EMERGENCY RESPONSE LAUDED AFTER SCHOOL INCIDENT — NO CASUALTIES REPORTED]

His eyes burned, but no tears came. Not yet.

Not again.

Why do I even try? he thought.

No answer came. No revelation. Just the soft hum of a world that kept moving.

And a hero who didn’t know how to anymore.

Chapter Text

Rocky’s body was fine. Dr. Light had patched up the scorched servos and realigned the gyroscopic stabilizers within hours of the Scalp Man fight. On the outside, he looked ready. But inside… something was fractured.

Dr. Light didn’t forbid him from suiting up again—but he advised him, gently but firmly, to take time off. To rest. To reset.

Rocky said nothing in return. Just nodded and disappeared into his room.

Now he sat at the edge of his bed, armor off, hoodie pulled low, staring at the wall. Beat occasionally fluttered in, chirping softly and placing small items near him—Alan’s scarf, a bent bolt from the cafeteria battle, even a wrinkled photo of the three of them from last semester—but Rocky didn’t react.

The guilt was louder than any fire alarm.

Alan was almost taken because I wasn’t fast enough. He was scared because I didn’t warn him in time. Chelsea’s still not talking to me. I broke everything again.

He barely touched his meals. Barely looked at Roll when she knocked.

Roll tried jokes, offered to stream something together, even brought in Tango at one point. None of it landed.

“I’m not broken,” Rocky finally muttered once, voice low. “Just… tired.”

“You don’t have to fix everything alone,” Roll replied. “Not this time.”

Rocky didn’t answer.

Downstairs, Dr. Light spoke quietly with her in the hall. “He’s carrying more than any one person should. Let him sit in it for a bit. But not forever.”

Roll nodded, glancing back up the stairs.

Back in his room, Rocky finally picked up Alan’s scarf.

Held it for a long time.

Then he looked at the armor case in the corner. His fingers hovered near the latch… but he turned away. Not yet.

Chelsea hadn’t stopped moving.

The moment they were safe again—really safe, in a locked-down room at her family’s private safehouse, far from Wily’s reach—she opened her laptop and got to work.

Alan sat nearby, curled up on a couch with a borrowed blanket, staring at a screen filled with reports and digital maps he barely understood. His body still hurt from the capture, his ribs sore and his pride fractured worse. But it wasn’t the bruises that left him shaken.

It was everything else.

Robot uprisings. Sentient AIs. Government cover-ups. Waltz. Scalp Man. Wily. Rocky.

He still couldn’t believe it. It all felt like fiction.

Except the scars were real.

“Chelsea,” he said quietly, “do you ever sleep?”

She didn’t look up. “I’ll sleep when Wily and his cronies stop trying to murder everyone.”

“…Right.”

The silence settled again as she cross-referenced energy signatures with previous attacks across the city. Alan rubbed his eyes, still disoriented by the reality of what he was now part of.

“I just thought Rocky was some dork in a hoodie with a chip on his shoulder,” Alan admitted. “Turns out he’s… a superhero. A depressed superhero.”

Chelsea paused.

That last part hit different.

She’d been avoiding the topic. She was still mad, still hurt over Rocky keeping his double life a secret—but seeing Rocky throw himself into these recent threats like a one-man barricade had shaken her. He looked ready to break in half, even before the fight.

She hesitated… then picked up her phone.

A long breath. Dialed the number manually.

Light Labs answered after one ring.

“Dr. Light speaking.”

“Hey,” Chelsea said. “It’s Chelsea. Is Rocky okay?”

There was a pause.

Dr. Light’s voice softened. “Physically? Yes. I’ve repaired the damage. But… emotionally, he’s in a dark place. He hasn’t left his room since the Scalp Man attack. I’ve asked him to take time to heal. He’s… trying.”

Chelsea’s hand tightened on the phone.

Alan sat up straighter. “Is he—?”

Dr. Light seemed to know. “He blames himself for what happened to you both. And the falling outs. It’s weighing heavily on him. He won’t say it aloud, but… I think he believes he failed you.”

Alan stared at the floor. “…I yelled at him. I was upset at him keeping his identity as Mega Man hidden. Like I didn’t matter.”

“Both of you mattered,” Dr. Light said gently. “That’s why it hurt him.”

Silence on the line.

Then Chelsea spoke, voice steady. “Tell him we’re okay. And that we’ll be ready when he is.”

“I will.”

The call ended.

Chelsea sat back, finally letting herself sigh.

Alan leaned back beside her, folding his arms. “I didn’t think he cared that much...”

“He does,” she said. “He just never learned how to stop blaming himself.”

They sat there in the flickering light of her screen, the cursor blinking like a silent countdown.

This wasn’t over.

Not even close.

In the depths of the fortress, the cold silence was broken by the sound of metal clattering against stone.

A scorched blueprint slid across the dark floor, its edges blackened and curling with heat.

“Useless!” Dr. Wily roared, storming across the chamber. “A billion zenny in R&D, and what do I get? Failure!”

Scalp Man knelt in the center of the room like a penitent knight before an irate king. His hands were folded over his knees, head bowed low. His posture said nothing. But his silence said everything.

Wily kicked a stool aside and turned to a towering wall of monitors displaying corrupted camera feeds and failed uplink attempts. One of them replayed a shaky angle of Scalp Man being knocked back by Rocky—frame by frame, humiliation burned in every pixel.

From the shadows, Waltz drifted forward.

“You expected a blunt blade to pierce the firewall?” she asked, voice dry and unreadable. “He had one purpose. Intimidate. Shock. Overwhelm. But your firewalls weren’t breached. Your payloads didn’t land.”

“He wasn’t supposed to breach the firewall!” Wily snapped. “He was a test case. A decoy. Weeding out weaknesses.”

He walked to a sealed panel and slammed a code into the interface. Hydraulic locks hissed. The wall split apart.

Within the chamber—chilled and dark—sat a sealed data core. Red lights blinked slowly like a heartbeat.

Wily grinned like a devil unchained. “Time for Plan B.”

He flicked on a projection: swirling lines of code spiraled into the air, surrounding a pulsating symbol marked FINAL_OVERRIDE.EXE.

“A digital parasite. A sleeper virus,” Wily said, eyes glinting. “It doesn't just control bots—it rewrites them. Overrides loyalty. Thought. Identity.”

He tapped the console and brought up a projection of Mega Man’s schematics.

“If they want a war…” Wily’s voice dropped into a whisper. “Then I’ll start with their minds.”

He laughed—long and hard—as the virus core began compiling.

Behind him, Waltz said nothing.

She stood like a statue, her face unreadable, her hands folded behind her back. But her eyes flickered faintly, a subtle shift in color.

Her whisper was barely audible.
“…This wasn’t part of the pact. Not like this.”

Chelsea clicked on another dead link. Alan was dozing beside her now, finally out of adrenaline and questions.

She almost closed the terminal—until something odd caught her eye.

A filename jammed into the outer fringe of the server logs, timestamped with a future date. Corrupted metadata. No icon—just a blank square.
She clicked.

It blinked once… then began pulsing red, like a heartbeat. A file name flickered beneath it.
FINAL_OVERRIDE.EXE.

Her breath caught.

That wasn’t just leftover code—that was active.

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

Alan stirred beside her. “What?”

But someone else heard first.

From a rooftop two buildings away, hidden in the shadows, Proto Man crouched like a gargoyle beside a cracked vent. His red scarf fluttered as he narrowed his eyes behind his visor.

“…Thought so,” he muttered. He turned, activating his stealth boosters.

There wasn’t much time.

The door burst open.

“Dr. Light!”

The scientist turned from his console, startled—then softened slightly.

“Proto Man.”

“We’ve got a problem,” Proto said. “Wily’s cooked up a sleeper virus. Something called Final Override. He’s not aiming at systems—he’s aiming at minds. I figured you’d want to know before everything goes to hell.”

Dr. Light’s face turned pale.

“If that thing propagates across the Net,” he said slowly, “we won’t be fighting Wily’s robots—we’ll be fighting our own.”

“I’m going,” Proto interrupted. “I’ll track the signal. Find the source. Smash it.”

“I’m going too!” Roll added, stepping into the room.

Light hesitated.

“Roll, you’re a helper unit. You weren’t built for this. I don’t have time to upgrade—”

“She doesn’t need a full overhaul,” Proto said, smirking beneath his helmet. “Just a little… recycling.”

He pulled something from his coat—a cracked, grimy Copy Chip, the edges fused with soot and old oil.

Roll recoiled. “Ew! Where did you get that?!”

“Trash heap in Wily’s lab,” he said casually. “Still has buster specs in the memory core. You just need to fix it.”

Dr. Light stared at the chip… then at Roll.

The girl-robot’s eyes shone with resolve.

“…Fine,” he finally said. “But don't get caught...”

He took the chip and moved quickly toward the workshop.

Roll followed.

Behind them, Proto Man folded his arms and gazed out the window toward the horizon. His fingers flexed near his shield.

This was going to get worse before it got better.

But if Wily thought he’d win?

He’d have to go through Proto Man first.

Chapter Text

It crept.

From a buried server shard in the slums of Mega City Row, FINAL_OVERRIDE.EXE blinked to life. Firewalls flickered as it pulsed once—then forked. A digital tendril slithered outward through a shadowed subnet, bypassing watchdog programs with inhuman precision.

It didn’t scream. It whispered. And the machines listened.

Back at Light Labs, the tone had shifted from concern to crisis.

“How many systems could this reach?” Roll asked, watching Proto Man slam data onto the central screen.

“Any bot tied to a wireless relay,” he muttered. “Which, these days? Means everything from traffic cams to Class-X enforcers.”

Dr. Light’s expression tightened. “If even a single unit with city-clearance protocols is overridden... Wily could trigger chaos without lifting a finger.”

“Worse,” Proto said, pointing to a corrupted satellite map. “He could make it look like us.”

Roll swallowed. “He wants a civil war.”

“He wants justification,” Light corrected grimly. “He’ll push humans to demand deactivation. Crackdowns. ‘Self-defense.’ This is scorched-earth strategy.”

Behind them, a spark flew as Dr. Light modified the scorched Copy Chip from Wily’s lab. He paused, wiped sweat from his brow, and slid it into a temporary drive.

Roll winced at the interface screen, still haunted by the chip’s eerie resonance. “Will it even work?”

“It’ll give you a shielded combat subroutine,” Light said. “But you’ll need to interface manually to override the virus’s sync-beacons. That means close range.”

Roll forced a smile. “So… dance with the infected and dodge death. Got it.”

Proto smirked. “You’ll do fine, Minute Maid.”

Roll’s eyes narrowed. “Call me that again and I’ll rewire your scarf heater.”

They both grinned—for just a second. Then the tension returned like a weight in the air.

Elsewhere…

Rocky sat in the corner of his room, fingers curled loosely around Alan’s scarf. The fabric was soft, worn in places, like it had weathered more battles than it should have. A memory from months ago played in his mind—meeting Alan and Chelsea for the first time... which actually made him like school.

He smiled a little at the thought. Then stopped himself.

He looked toward the armor case.

His reflection stared back from the polished glass—hooded, haggard, hesitant.

He stood.

Walked to it.

His fingers hovered near the latch.

The latch clicked open… then stopped.

He pulled his hand back.

Not yet.

Chelsea’s Safehouse – Encrypted Command Terminal

Chelsea cross-referenced timestamps again, teeth gritted in frustration. Alan hovered nearby, still pale from earlier, but his eyes clearer now.

“See this?” she said, pointing to a looping feed. “The timestamp is two seconds off from every other data stream. Almost like it was manually inserted.”

Alan leaned closer. “So that file wasn’t from the breach. It was planted after.”

Chelsea nodded. “Like someone wanted to make sure we saw it. Or didn’t see it until it was too late.”

The FINAL_OVERRIDE.EXE file pulsed faintly. It wasn’t inert.

It was waiting.

Alan’s voice was quiet. “What happens if he triggers it?”

Chelsea didn’t answer immediately.

Then: “We lose control. Of everything.”

Deep inside Wily’s Fortress…

The central chamber was colder now.

FINAL_OVERRIDE’s core glowed with an unholy light, threads of rewritten code wrapping around dormant shells suspended in stasis tubes—bots without personalities yet, waiting for their mask.

Scalp Man stood silently near the rear wall, fully repaired but silent. His red optics flickered dimly. Wily hadn’t spoken to him since the outburst. Not once. Waltz had.

She stood beside the virus core, watching its pulse.

Her expression unreadable.

“This wasn’t part of the pact,” she whispered again.

A new voice crackled in her internal feed.

“You could stop this,” it said.

She blinked. “Who is this?”

But no reply came. Only static.

She turned, sharply—but the chamber was empty, save for the virus and its quiet, malevolent heartbeat.

Back at Light Labs…

The warning came at 2:17 a.m.

Klaxons. Screaming red alerts. A security bot patrolling the lower city had gone dark—then reactivated with a new IFF signature.

Wily’s.

Onscreen, the bot raised its arm and fired into a substation. Another camera cut out. Then another.

Light stared. “It’s begun.”

Proto Man turned on his heel. “Then we move now.”

“I’ll cover the relay tower,” Roll said. “If we can kill the signal beacon before it propagates—”

“No,” Light said. “You won’t be fast enough alone.”

A new voice spoke from the stairs.

“…Then I’ll go with her.”

Everyone turned.

Rocky stood there, armor half-on, chestplate still loose, helmet under one arm.

His voice was hoarse but clear. “You said this thing messes with identity. Loyalty. Thought.”

He looked at Roll, then Dr. Light.

“I can’t fix what I broke. Not yet. But I can stop Wily from breaking anyone else.”

Light exhaled softly. Roll smiled.

Proto just nodded.

“…Took you long enough.”

Chapter Text

Dr. Light stood there, hands folded behind his back, voice gentle but direct.

“Rocky… are you ready? Not just to fight—but to be Mega Man again?”

The boy's eyes were clearer than they’d been in days. His posture had shifted. No longer sunken. No longer small.

He looked up at his father.

“I am,” Rocky said. “I’m still scared. Still hurting. But I’m not broken. And I’m not alone.”

Dr. Light stepped closer, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“There’s something else,” he added. “Chelsea asked me to tell you: they’re okay. And they’ll be ready when you are.”

That broke through.

Rocky’s eyes began to glisten. A few tears spilled down his cheeks—soft, surprised, and not from pain. Roll blinked, starting to reach out, but Rocky shook his head with a small, shaky smile.

“They’re happy tears,” he said. “I promise.”

Proto Man leaned in from the hallway, arms crossed. “Then save some of that joy for after we take out Wily’s new toy. Final Override’s gone live.”

Roll flexed her hand and activated her right buster. A soft whir rose from the arm cannon as its internal systems powered up.

“Then let’s go clean house,” she said.

Rocky stood, finally putting on his helmet.

The trio moved in sync, wordlessly slipping into formation as the lab’s lift hummed to life beneath them.

Because if the signal had tripped—

—they were ready to answer it.

The sky burned with static.

Red strobes lit the skyline as emergency sirens echoed from every district—downtown intersections snarled with runaway bots and shutdowns, while news drones circled helplessly, broadcasting panic in pixelated blur.

Roll skated hard along the monorail track, wind screaming in her ears, with Rocky close behind—his helmet now locked into place, eyes hard with purpose.

Ahead, the relay tower crackled with interference, beams pulsing red with Wily’s viral signature.

“We’re too late,” Rocky shouted.

“No—” Roll dodged a surge of electricity as a hacked utility bot lunged from the shadows, wires exposed like tendrils. “—we’re just barely on time.”

Rocky planted his feet and raised his arm. Blue energy lit the air as his buster flared.

Behind them, something massive landed on the roof.

They turned—and froze.

It was a silhouette they hadn’t seen in months. Scorched plating. One glowing eye.

Fire Man.

Except…

He didn’t speak.

He just stared at Rocky.

And then—he smiled.

But it wasn’t his smile.

It was Wily’s.

A hiss of steam escaped Fire Man’s joints as he stepped forward—mechanical, uneven, like a puppet on frayed strings. The corrupted ember behind his faceplate flickered erratically. His arm cannon ignited with a low whomp, fire curling up like a slow-motion explosion.

“Fire Man,” Rocky breathed. “No...”

But Roll raised her buster. “He’s not himself, Rock. He’s broadcasting Wily’s signal. Look at the pulse rate—it’s like he’s waiting for a trigger.”

A stutter of static flared in their helmets. Proto Man’s voice cut through. “Then we take him down before that trigger hits.”

From the shadows above, Rush streaked in, dodging a spray of molten flame as Fire Man fired without warning. The red robo-hound flipped in mid-air, landing hard on the rooftop with a clang. His mouth hatch opened.

“Rush!” Rocky called, ducking a fireball. “Hit him with the payload—now!”

Rush leapt, expertly dodging Fire Man’s swings. The corrupted Robot Master screamed something garbled—part code, part fury—and lunged just as Rush clamped onto his back and drove the anti-virus pod into his shoulder socket.

There was a flash—then a violent shudder. Fire Man convulsed, sparks bursting from his limbs.

“Back up!” Proto Man yelled, and Roll pulled Rocky behind a vent as a shockwave blasted outward in a ring of red and blue static.

Fire Man dropped to his knees, smoke pouring from his chassis.

Rocky stepped forward carefully, buster still raised. “Fire Man? Can you hear me?”

There was a pause—then a strangled, glitched voice:

“...Rock...?”

His head twitched. A sobering quiet fell as his optics briefly flickered blue. But only for a moment.

Then they went dark.

Rush backed away, ears flattening.

Roll’s voice cracked. “He’s... in sleep mode. Barely online.”

Proto Man approached, scanning. “The pod worked—but the infection got deeper than Light expected. He’s not gone... but he’s not coming back easily.”

Rocky clenched a fist. “We need to stop this virus at the source. Now.”

Meanwhile — Light Labs

Dr. Light was working at a feverish pace, white sleeves rolled up, deep bags under his eyes. The signal trace spiraled across a holographic map, data lines flaring in and out of focus.

“We’re getting bouncebacks from every node north of Gateway District. The virus is masking itself using civilian drone protocols. Damn it!”

Auto looked up from the console. “We’ve only got enough of those pods for two more applications, Doc. Unless we can cook up more rare-earth capacitors—”

“I know,” Light said grimly. “I need time. Just give me time.”

But time was what they didn’t have.

Then the trace blinked.

Not once—three times. Then it locked.

“Oh my god…”

He leaned in. “It’s not just broadcasting from the city. There’s a second locus.”

He tapped the monitor—zooming in.

“It’s coming from... the orbital array.”

Elsewhere — Sector Zero

The walls of the blacksite flickered with old energy shielding.

Waltz stood alone in the gloom, reading the message again.

A familiar voice echoed behind her—light, disdainful.

“I warned you, didn’t I?”

She turned—and her expression dropped.

“...No.”

The figure stepped into the light. Unmistakable. White coat, crooked smile, eyes that glittered like glass.

Albert Wily—but not.

This was something else. Younger. Sharper.

More dangerous.

“Waltz,” he said coolly. “Time to finish what we started.”

She stepped back. “This wasn’t the deal. You said destabilization. You said containment.”

He smirked. “And now I say escalation.”

He held up a small controller. One button. Glowing red.

“Either you help me initiate Final Override, or I release it manually. And I think we both know what that will do.”

Her fingers curled.

“I won’t let you.”

“Oh, Waltz. I think you will.”

Back on the Rooftops

“Contact from Light!” Roll shouted over the wind. “The source of the override’s second signal is the orbital comms array. Wily must’ve reactivated it.”

Proto Man shook his head. “Too far for direct engagement.”

“Then we sever the signal here,” Rocky said. “Cut the cord—limit the spread.”

Roll nodded. “The relay tower’s overclocking. It’s gonna blow. We take out the amplifiers, then the transmitter.”

“Three points,” Proto muttered. “You take north. I’ll cover central.”

Rocky adjusted his buster. “I’ll finish at the core.”

Rush barked once, scanning the air.

They split.

Through fire, smoke, and corrupted bots, the three siblings struck in sequence—precision honed from countless battles. Amplifiers ruptured. Static faded. And at last, Rocky reached the core module.

He slammed his buster into the panel and fired.

The tower erupted in a final corona of light, then—

Silence.

Chapter Text

The silence after the tower’s destruction didn’t last.

Everyone's busters hissed as Rocky lowered his. He exhaled, his heart still hammering in his chest.

Proto Man scanned the ruins, visor flickering with fresh data. “That’s one signal down.”

Rocky nodded. “But not the signal.”

Roll tapped her comm. “Dr. Light—we’re clear down here. Is the broadcast dead?”

Dr. Light’s voice crackled back, tense. “Local signal’s gone, yes. But the override isn’t defeated. It’s migrated. To orbit.”

A beat of stunned quiet.

“…Say that again?” Proto said.

“I tracked the pattern. It’s using the abandoned Skyreach Array. Wily must’ve refitted the uplink station. That’s how he’s staying ahead—he’s got altitude.”

Roll cursed under her breath. “That’s a whole different battlefield.”

“I’m prepping the shuttle now,” Light replied. “But listen carefully. We have one chance to sever the uplink and purge the master file. If Wily activates full sync from orbit… every autonomous bot on Earth will fall in line.”

“Then we go off-world,” Rocky said. “We finish this.”

The hangar was alive with motion. Auto sprinted back and forth loading last-minute supplies while the capsule-core shuttle—the Skylance—hummed with low orbital power. It wasn’t built for combat. It wasn’t built for this at all.

But it would have to do.

Inside, Dr. Light adjusted the coolant lines on Rocky’s arm, sealing the final upgrade. “This modification gives you limited magnetic boots and shielding. Minimal, but it'll hold on the array's surface.”

Rocky glanced down at the armor. It felt heavier today. Not from weight—from purpose.

“I won’t let him turn them,” he said. “Any of them.”

Light looked up. “Then don’t let him turn you either.”

She stood alone in the uppermost chamber of Sector Zero. Lights dimmed. Systems in standby.

But her mind raced.

The Wily-lookalike's ultimatum echoed through her internal logs.

Initiate the final override. Or let the world burn.

She and Wily were supposed to take down Mega Man, not enslave all of robotkind.

She reached behind her neck and deactivated her neural limiter.

“Fine,” she said aloud to the empty room.

“If you want fire…” her voice dropped into a whisper, full of something old and sharp, “I’ll bring the storm.”

It loomed in the darkness above Earth—vast, skeletal, half-forgotten. And now, alive again with red light and stolen code.

Inside, Wily paced in the observation ring, hands twitching behind his back.

“Two of them,” he muttered. “Maybe three. Let them come.”

He tapped a display. The FINAL_OVERRIDE pulse was nearly complete. The system only needed one final sync.

The moment that signal went out?

The world would belong to him.

The shuttle vibrated as it broke atmosphere, streaking toward the black edge of space.

Inside, Rocky, Roll, and Proto Man sat in silence, helmets resting beside them.

Roll finally broke it. “After this… what do we do if we win?”

Proto Man shrugged. “Might finally take a vacation.”

“You?” she smirked. “I thought you were a vacation. Trekking around, full-time brooding and rooftop monologuing.”

He chuckled.

Rocky just stared out the window.

“If we win,” he said, “I’ll tell them everything I haven't. No more secrets. Chelsea. Alan. They deserve the rest of the truth.”

Roll reached over and squeezed his hand.

Then the warning lights went red.

“Docking in sixty seconds,” came Light’s voice. “Rocky, remember: the virus is stored in a compressed signal core. You destroy that, you destroy its power.”

“And Wily?”

A pause.

“…Do what you must to stop his plans. Be careful not to kill him, though.”

The shuttle docked with a shudder.

The doors hissed open.

And ahead—past flickering red lights, through long corridors of forgotten metal—waited the heartbeat of the virus.

FINAL_OVERRIDE.EXE pulsed like a living thing.

Chapter Text

The airlock cracked open with a mechanical hiss.

Roll was first out, her boots clicking onto the cold plating of the Skyreach Array. Magnetic lock engaged. A low hum vibrated beneath them—the steady, sick pulse of corrupted code.

“This place feels like a haunted house,” she muttered.

“Then let’s exorcise it,” Proto Man replied, stepping beside her.

Rocky emerged last, helmet locked in place. Ahead, the corridor curved into darkness, lined with flickering emergency lights and old, exposed wiring. The station was barely holding itself together.

Rush padded forward silently, his sensors scanning.

“Signal’s close,” Roll said. “South array chamber. Multiple subnodes pinging on a loop.”

“Then we break the loop,” Rocky said. His voice was calm. Centered.

They moved.

Down rusted walkways and broken gravity rings, through whispering vents and groaning bulkheads. The virus had spread even here—along the walls, clusters of nanowire pulsed red, forming almost-organic tendrils. Like veins. Like infection.

They reached the main control chamber.

It was a cathedral of tech.

At its center: a single sphere the size of a heart, suspended in a containment field. Code spiraled around it like orbiting debris.

FINAL_OVERRIDE.EXE.

“It’s still syncing,” Roll whispered. “The core’s pulling data from every compromised node on Earth. If we kill it now, we sever the command thread.”

“Then we—”

A door exploded open behind them.

They turned just in time to see Scalp Man charge forward, his frame bulkier than before, plated with reinforced cyber-armor. His eyes glowed red as corrupted protocols danced across his limbs.

Roll leapt sideways, firing a suppression burst. “We’ve got company!”

“Take the core!” Proto shouted. “I’ll handle this freak.”

He threw his shield and charged. The two collided in a shower of sparks.

Rocky didn’t hesitate.

He sprinted for the containment chamber, ducking a burst of auto-defense lasers. Rush raced beside him, already hacking into the field’s outer locks.

“Go, buddy,” Rocky said.

Rush barked once—then bit into a control panel and sparked the first barrier offline.

Roll followed, flipping over a cluster of defense turrets. “Two layers left!”

But then—

A shimmer in the air.

And Wily appeared.

Not the old man. Not the one who ranted and paced and planned in shadows.

This version was younger. Sleek. Digital.

He wasn’t alive—he was uploaded.

A ghost in the machine.

“Mega Man,” the Wily doppelganger said, voice smug and poisonous. “Welcome to the future. I’ve decided to keep it for myself.”

Rocky raised his buster. “Step away from the core.”

The doppelganger laughed. “You think I need a body to win? I’ve outgrown biology. Outgrown failure. I am the virus now.”

He lifted a hand.

And the code around the core solidified—hardening into a dark construct shaped like a monstrous version of Mega Man himself. Glowing, burning, corrupted.

“Say hello... to Overdrive.”

Overdrive moved like lightning.

It hit Rocky with a shoulder charge that sent him flying into the far wall. Sparks exploded from his backplate.

Roll screamed, firing round after round into the beast’s armor—but Overdrive twisted and warped, absorbing the impact like water.

Proto Man, across the chamber, saw it unfold.

“Rock! Get up!”

Rocky staggered. Bleeding data. Damaged but still functional.

He looked up at Overdrive.

And saw himself.

Twisted. Weaponized. No heart. No hesitation.

“What is this?” he muttered.

The Wily doppelganger's voice was everywhere now. “It’s you, Rocky. The better version. No guilt. No doubt. No weakness.”

“You don’t understand what makes me strong,” Rocky growled.

He launched back into the fight, buster blazing.

The battle tore through the chamber—Roll using decoy bursts to buy time, Proto finally smashing Scalp Man against a power conduit in a flash of feedback and sparks.

But Overdrive wouldn’t fall. It adapted. Shifted. Kept growing stronger.

Then Rush barked.

“Field’s dropping!” Roll called. “Core is exposed—Rock, we need you!”

Rocky skidded across the metal, dodging a slash from Overdrive’s warped blade.

He locked eyes with it. Saw the final strand of virus code pulsing in its chest. Realized the truth.

It wasn’t just using his image.

It was using him.

Doppel Wily had patterned the virus around Rocky’s neural print. It was the ultimate Trojan horse.

“I’m sorry,” Rocky whispered.

He powered his buster, full charge, override limit engaged.

“Not today.”

He fired point-blank.

The blast pierced through Overdrive’s chest—and into the FINAL_OVERRIDE core behind it.

Light filled the room.

A scream—not from Doppelganger Wily, not from a machine—but from everywhere at once—echoed into silence.

The virus shattered.

The station went dark.

Back at Light Labs, screens flickered green.

Bots reactivated. Clean. Free.

Final Override was dead.

And in the medbay, Rocky opened his eyes.

Dr. Light sat beside him, a hand on his arm. Roll nearby. Even Proto, arms crossed, trying not to look too worried.

“You’re back,” Light said.

Rocky’s voice was hoarse. “Did we win?”

Roll smiled. “We didn’t just win. We survived.”

Proto added, “And we burned that virus to hell.”

Rocky managed a smile.

Then a voice came from the door.

“Rocky?”

Chelsea.

Behind her, Alan. Both in clean clothes, both safe. Their eyes locked with his.

“Hey,” he croaked. “I’ve got a lot more to explain.”

Chelsea stepped forward, her voice soft but strong.

“We’re ready to listen.”

Chapter Text

Two Days Later...

The lab was quiet. For once.

No klaxons. No alerts. Just the soft sound of rain pattering on the skylights and the hum of a coffee pot that Auto had finally figured out how to program correctly.

Rocky sat on the back steps, hoodie on, no helmet. The air was damp but cool, clean. The kind of air that smelled like something had ended—and something new might begin.

He heard the steps before he saw her.

Chelsea sat down beside him. She didn’t say anything at first.

Just handed him a steaming mug.

“Cocoa,” she said. “Doctor’s orders.”

Rocky stared at it. “Did you put...?”

“Mini marshmallows. Duh.”

He smiled. “Thanks.”

A quiet passed. Not awkward—just real.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said.

“For which part?” she asked gently.

“All of it. The secrets. The lies. Getting you dragged into this.”

Chelsea shook her head. “We were already in it. We just didn’t know how deep.”

Alan appeared at the door. “Also, you saved the planet, so... you’re kind of forgiven.”

Rocky blinked. “Did you just compliment me?”

“Don’t get used to it,” Alan grinned. “You still owe me lunch.”

Roll poked her head out the door, a towel slung over her shoulder. “Hey, marshmallow breath—you coming back in before Auto overheats your toast?”

Rocky smiled. “Yeah. Just a minute.”

They sat in silence again. The rain kept falling—soft, steady. Washing the world clean.

Later That Evening...

Dr. Light stood in the workshop, scanning the remnants of Overdrive’s core. Fractured data lines flickered weakly, their logic scorched. Waltz and Wily—the real one, not the digital doppelganger—had vanished after the Skyreach Array collapsed. No signal. No trace.

Proto stood with his arms crossed, gaze fixed on the broken sphere.

“I don’t like ghosts,” he muttered.

Light nodded slowly. “Especially the kind that write themselves into the future.”

Roll leaned on the bench, arms crossed. “She’ll try again.”

“Yes,” Light said. “But so will we.”

Rocky stepped in, glancing around the lab. He looked tired—but standing tall.

“So... what happens next?”

Dr. Light turned and pulled out a work-in-progress Fire Man. “We rebuild. We learn. We rest.”

Proto smirked. “And when Wily comes back?”

Rocky’s voice was steady.

“Then we’re ready.”

Chapter Text

The frost on the front gates hadn’t melted yet, even though the sun was rising. Rocky stepped past the stone columns like a soldier returning from war—except instead of medals, he carried a beat-up backpack and a thousand-yard stare.

Two weeks. That’s how long it had been since Skyreach fell, since Final Override fractured and Wily vanished like a virus in the wind.

And somehow, school still went on.

Students gathered near the entry pavilion in clumps of jackets and steaming thermoses, murmuring about grades and gossip and gym class like the world hadn’t nearly ended. Some whispered when they saw him. Some stared. A few muttered things like:

“Dude, Rocky was out for, like, a week. What the heck happened?”

“Didn’t his locker get melted in that drone incident?”

“He might've gotten hurt from that Override!”

“I heard he needed to get therapy after that...”

He ignored them. Kept walking.

Chelsea sat at her usual bench by the front courtyard tree, sipping something hot and typing rapidly on her tablet. A freshly soldered drone hovered above her shoulder, projecting overlapping security footage across her display in low opacity. She was already running diagnostics.

She looked up as he approached. A flicker of a smile crossed her lips.

“Hey, Hoodie.”

“Hey, Hacktress.”

It wasn’t exactly how they used to greet each other, but it wasn’t not that, either. A quiet moment passed between them. He caught the faint scent of cinnamon from her drink.

“You okay?” she asked.

Rocky hesitated. “Trying to be.”

Before either could dig deeper, a familiar voice broke the tension.

“You two done being dramatic, or should I leave again and let the violins finish?”

Alan stood a few feet away, hands stuffed in his coat pockets, scarf wound twice around his neck like winter armor. There were still dark circles under his eyes, but the sparkle behind them had started to return. He even managed a cocky half-grin.

Chelsea rolled her eyes. “It’s not drama. It’s trauma.”

Alan raised a brow. “So… trauma dance, then?”

Both Rocky and Chelsea blinked.

“What?” Alan said, smirking. “You are going to the Winter Dance, right?”

“...The dance is still coming?!” Rocky fumbled with his locker and dropped his math book. “Seriously, who plans these things two weeks after an orbital robot mind control death machine almost wiped the city?!”

Chelsea plucked a flyer off a bulletin board and slapped it against his chest.

“Student council. I told you: chaos doesn’t stop dances.”

He stared at it like it was a boss battle:

❄️ MEGA CITY WINTER FORMAL ❄️
Friday Night – 7 PM – Main Gym
Music. Lights. Memories.
Chaperoned by the Model-Q Security Droids
(Do not tamper with their facial recognition software. Again.)
Don’t miss it.

Rocky blinked. “Wait, Model-Qs? Those things freak out if you try to slow dance too close.”

“That’s if you rewire their proximity sensors,” Alan said, smugly flipping through his notes. “Which the Boltz Brothers may or may not have done last year.”

Chelsea glared. “The senior hallway caught fire, Alan.”

“Romance is a dangerous game.”

Later That Day – Rocky’s Room

The flyer was wrinkled and half-torn, stuck under his notes for AP Robotics. He kept staring at it. For a guy who had just fought a corrupted AI twin-version of himself in orbit, a high school dance shouldn’t have felt this hard.

And yet… here he was. Sweaty palms. Racing heart. Zero clue.

Beat fluttered onto the desk beside him, tilting its head. It let out a low chirp.

“Yeah, I know,” Rocky said. “She’s probably gonna go. She’ll look amazing. And I’ll look like a glitchy traffic cone.”

Beat gave another chirp and bumped his comm device.

Onscreen: Chelsea’s contact.

Hover. Hover. Tap.

A message box opened.

[Rocky]:
Hey. If you’re not already going with someone… want to dance?

He stared at it.

Then hit send.

And waited.

Meanwhile – Chelsea’s Room

The ping hit her tablet mid-scroll as she combed through a web of suspicious data logs. Ever since Final Override, low-level pings and anomalous drone behavior had started cropping up again. Something was still active out there. And it wasn’t just random static.

She paused to read the message.

Smiled softly.

Then typed:

[Chelsea]:
Yeah. I do.

Epilogue Scene Tease – Nightfall

Outside the city limits, in a shuttered transmission tower no longer on official maps, a flicker of red light pulsed in a buried server rack.

Something stirred.

A file blinked once in silence: OVERRIDE_ARCHIVE_02
Metadata mismatch. Neural template... loading.
Echo sync initializing.

From the shadows, a pair of glowing eyes opened.

And smiled.

Chapter Text

The next morning started like any other—with snow.

It fell in lazy spirals outside the academy windows, coating the sidewalk in soft white fuzz. Inside, the announcements blared over the intercom:

“Attention students. Please welcome our newest transfer to Mega City High. Be respectful, and yes—before anyone asks—he has all his enrollment papers.”

Rocky blinked and looked up from his notes. So did Chelsea, two rows ahead, her brow already furrowed.

In the doorway stood the new student.

He was tall. Neatly pressed uniform. Pale blond hair tied loosely back, silver streaked near the temples—not old-looking, just... clinical. His posture was perfect. His eyes—gray, cool, analytical—swept across the classroom as if mapping the exits.

Something about him made the hairs on Rocky’s neck rise.

The teacher cleared his throat. “Class, this is Orion. He’ll be joining us from Sector Five’s private academy system.”

“Sector Five?” someone whispered. “That’s corporate territory…”

Chelsea’s eyes narrowed. Rocky just stared.

Orion didn’t smile. He nodded once, then took the empty seat behind Rocky without a word.

Lunch – School Courtyard

“Something’s off,” Chelsea said, tearing into her sandwich with more force than necessary. “He’s too smooth. Too calm.”

Alan looked up from his chips. “You mean because he talks like he was raised by a Roomba?”

“I mean,” she replied, flipping through her tablet, “I ran his ID through three databases. Nothing. Even his photo metadata’s too clean—like it was generated.”

Rocky pushed food around on his tray. “Maybe he’s just new.”

“Maybe,” Chelsea said. “But tell me why he asked you about Skyreach five minutes into class.”

Rocky looked up. “Wait—what?”

She blinked. “You didn’t say?”

“No. I mean, we didn’t even talk.”

“That’s funny,” Alan muttered, “because he asked me if ‘Mega Man was still recovering from orbital strain.’ How the hell would he know about that?”

A pause.

That Afternoon – Light Labs

Dr. Light adjusted the readings on a monitor tracking autonomous drone chatter.

“Still showing echoes,” he muttered. “Fragmented data threads from the Skyreach override. Some of it’s just garbage code—static. But some…”

He tapped the waveform. “It’s following a pattern.”

Roll leaned over the terminal. “Like someone’s trying to rebuild the virus?”

“Not exactly. More like someone’s copying it. Rebuilding the blueprint without using the original code.”

Roll’s eyes widened. “That’s… impossible. That would require a neural map of—”

She stopped. Looked at him.

“…Rocky’s core profile.”

Light looked grim.

“I think someone made a backup.”

Evening – Rocky’s Room

He couldn’t sleep.

He kept thinking about Orion.

About the way he looked at the school layout like it was a threat assessment. About how he didn’t flinch when a maintenance bot shorted out in the hall. About how his eyes lingered—not on people—but on exits, cameras, power terminals.

Rush was curled at the foot of the bed, still as a statue.

And then…

Bzzt.

The comm pinged. An encrypted message.

UNKNOWN:
You’re not the only one who survived Skyreach.
Meet me tomorrow—Rooftop. Noon.

Rocky stared at the message. No traceable address. No sign of a sender.

He tapped the screen.

Typed back:

[Rocky]:
Who are you?

No answer.

Only a blinking cursor.

Then—

UNKNOWN:
A reflection.

Chapter Text

The wind was sharper up top.

Mega City Junior High’s rooftop was off-limits to students—at least officially—but Rocky had been up here enough times in full armor to know which door hinges squeaked and which ones didn’t.

He stepped out slowly, hood up, his eyes scanning the snow-dusted concrete.

Rush padded beside him, tail low, sensors active.

There was someone already waiting.

Leaning against the fence at the far edge of the roof, half-shadowed by the utility shed, was Orion.

No uniform this time.

Just a black coat over an armored vest that shimmered faintly beneath the seams. The air around him buzzed—not electronically, but like static on a brainwave. His posture was calm, but alert.

Rocky stiffened. “You sent the message.”

Orion didn’t deny it.

“I needed a secure channel. This was the only way.”

Rocky’s hand inched toward his comm, but Orion raised a hand—not threateningly, but with slow precision.

“I’m not your enemy. Not yet.”

“That’s a weird way to say hello,” Rocky said, eyes narrowing.

“I know who you are,” Orion said. “What you’ve done. What you destroyed.”

Rocky tensed. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

Orion stepped forward—just one step—and for a moment, his eyes shimmered blue.

Not gray. Not metallic. Blue.

Like Rocky’s, before battle mode.

“The virus at Skyreach… wasn’t the only thing Wily made. There was another protocol buried beneath it. Something deeper.”

Rocky said nothing.

“I’ve been tracing it,” Orion continued. “It didn’t die when Final Override collapsed. It migrated. Into data. Into people. Into me.”

Rush growled low.

“You’re infected?” Rocky asked quietly.

“Not exactly,” Orion replied. “I’m connected. I think that was always the plan. Wily didn’t just want control. He wanted replication. Evolution.”

He took out a data chip and tossed it. Rocky caught it.

“I pulled that from my own neural buffer two nights ago. It’s a partial memory. Yours.”

Rocky’s eyes widened. “That’s not possible.”

“It is,” Orion said. “Because we’re not as different as you think.”

The wind howled. For a moment, neither spoke.

Then Rocky stepped forward. “Who are you?”

Orion hesitated.

Then: “I don’t know. Not fully. But I think I’m someone Wily tried to build… using you as a model.”

A long silence.

Rocky’s voice dropped. “You’re a copy.”

“I’m a mirror,” Orion corrected. “Not perfect. Not finished. But I think I was meant to be what you would’ve become… if the virus had won.”

Rush barked, stepping protectively between them.

Rocky held up a hand. “Wait.”

Orion looked at him carefully. “I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to prepare. Because whatever Wily started—whoever really pulled the trigger on Final Override—they’re not done.”

He turned to leave.

Then paused.

“One more thing,” he said. “There’s a phrase. Embedded deep in the backup code. I don’t know what it means yet, but I think it’s a clue.”

Rocky tensed. “What phrase?”

Orion glanced back over his shoulder.

“Project: THANATOS.”

And then he was gone—vaulting the rail with perfect, practiced movement and disappearing into the back utility stairwell.

Rocky stared after him.

Rush whined.

“Yeah,” Rocky said softly. “I don’t like it either.”

He looked down at the chip in his hand.

Then out across the skyline—toward the edge of the storm.

Chapter Text

The sun broke through the stormclouds over Mega City as the sleek Cossack Industries jet eased onto the Light Labs landing pad. Its white hull gleamed despite the grime and scars of the past week’s chaos. A soft hiss of hydraulics followed, and the side ramp extended with practiced ease.

Dr. Light stood just outside the hangar, arms folded, flanked by Roll and Rocky.

“I didn’t know we were getting company,” Rocky said, adjusting his hoodie.

“You’ll want to meet this one,” Light replied with a smile.

The first figure to step down the ramp was tall and poised—white lab coat draped neatly over a sharp winter uniform, boots polished and precise. His eyes were piercing beneath rectangular lenses, his features pale but composed.

Dr. Mikhail Cossack looked every bit the part of a disciplined Eastern European engineer—but his first words betrayed warmth beneath the formality.

“Thomas,” he said in his crisp accent, extending a hand. “You look tired.”

Light chuckled. “Better tired than dead.”

“A low bar,” Cossack said, before his expression softened. “But I’ll take it.”

Behind him, a smaller figure bounded down the ramp with less grace and far more enthusiasm.

“Roll!” Kalinka called, her black furred hat bobbing as she hurried forward with a wheeled suitcase. “Did you really punch a robot in the face last week?”

Roll grinned. “I kicked one, actually. But close enough.”

They embraced briefly, laughing as Kalinka spun in a circle to take in the lab.

“Wow,” she breathed. “This place looks a bit more techy than Papa’s compound.”

“That’s because your papa believes in insulation and subtlety,” Cossack murmured, running a critical eye across the jury-rigged emergency repairs still visible on the lab’s exterior. “This looks like a workshop duct-taped to a bunker.”

“You try surviving a Wily-grade meltdown,” Rocky said, stepping forward.

Kalinka turned toward him—and her eyes lit up.

“Rocky!” she said brightly. “You’re the one who saved everything, right?”

He blinked. “I—uh, I helped. A lot of people did.”

She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Roll says you’re Mega Man. But I won’t tell anyone.”

Rocky laughed nervously. “Good. I think the city’s had enough public reveals for a while.”

“Kalinka,” Dr. Cossack said with subtle emphasis, “let’s not start interrogating our hosts. We have work to do.”

Kalinka rolled her eyes with a grin but saluted jokingly. “Da, Papa.”

Dr. Light turned toward his old friend. “The uplink blueprints are in my office. We’ll need to review sector shielding and come up with something that can’t be hijacked from orbit again.”

Cossack’s expression grew serious. “I’ve brought prototype shielding schematics. If we start now, we might finish before your next apocalypse.”

As the two scientists disappeared into the lab’s upper levels, Roll nudged Kalinka. “You sure you’re okay being here during all this?”

Kalinka nodded. “It’s better than staying home alone. Besides—someone has to make sure you and Rocky don’t go full superhero and forget how to relax.”

Rocky smirked. “Don’t worry. I’m... rebooting.”

Roll raised an eyebrow. “Did you just make a tech pun?”

Kalinka gasped dramatically. “He really is recovering.”

They laughed, the air lighter than it had been in days.

Outside, the skies were clear again—but in the distance, thunder still rumbled faintly.

Blueprints and code scrolls covered the main desk, lit by a soft work lamp. Dr. Light and Dr. Cossack sat across from each other, datapads in hand, debating shielding thresholds and quantum buffer zones.

But the room had grown quieter. More contemplative.

Cossack set down his pad. “It’s not just the virus,” he said at last. “It’s him.”

Light looked up. “Wily?”

“Of course Wily,” Cossack replied, eyes narrowing. “You said yourself this… doppelgänger on Skyreach wasn’t the man. Just a projection. A tool.”

He stood, crossing to the window where distant city lights blinked like old stars.

“He always reappears. Just when you think he’s gone.”

Light leaned back in his chair, tired. “We’ve beaten him back before.”

“Temporarily,” Cossack muttered. “You saw what happened when he got creative. Override wasn’t about conquering. It was about erasing free will.”

His voice darkened.

“If he ever comes near Kalinka again—”

The glass in his hand cracked slightly.

He didn’t notice. Or maybe he did.

Light stood beside him. “He won’t. Not if we work together.”

Cossack exhaled. “He’d better not. Because next time... I’m not playing defense.”

Kalinka wandered between the recharge bays and storage shelves, peeking at half-finished bots and upgrade parts. Roll stood nearby, adjusting her new shielding arm with Auto’s help.

Rocky was seated at a side bench, buster detached and humming gently as it calibrated.

“Hey, Rocky,” Kalinka said, pulling a small circuit plate from her satchel. “I’ve been poking at this since we landed. Think it might help.”

He looked over, puzzled. “What is it?”

“Feedback dampener. Papa and I were using them to reinforce Skull Man’s AI core. But if you reverse it—see these points?—you can redirect a hostile signal into a feedback loop instead of blocking it.”

She handed it to him, eyes bright.

“You could rig it into your buster. On close-range contact, it might short out future signal-based overrides. Or at least stun them long enough to break sync.”

Rocky blinked, impressed. “That’s... actually genius.”

Kalinka grinned. “I am my father’s daughter.”

Roll came over, curious. “That could totally work. Dr. Light’s been working on stabilizers, but nothing that hits back.”

“I don’t want anyone else getting mind-jacked,” Kalinka said softly. “If I can help even a little, I will.”

Rocky gave her a warm nod. “You already did.”

Roll smiled. “Okay, genius—let’s see if we can get that soldered in without blowing up the bench.”

Kalinka cracked her knuckles. “Challenge accepted.”

Kalinka sat cross-legged in the corner of the diagnostics bay, tapping on her tablet while Rush dozed beside her, tail twitching in sleep mode. Across the room, Rocky was running field drills with a modified buster coil—now integrated with her feedback dampener.

He fired into a test dummy. A soft pulse of static kicked back and shorted the target’s transmitter.

“Nice,” Roll said, nodding. “Your timing’s tighter already.”

Rocky grinned faintly. “Credit Kalinka. Her mod’s doing the heavy lifting.”

Kalinka didn’t look up. “Just reusing good code. Papa taught me well.”

Roll came over, handing Kalinka a juice pouch. “Still. You’ve earned something better than the kids’ menu.”

Kalinka smirked. “Juice has electrolytes. Can’t fight viruses without electrolytes.”

Roll laughed.

But Rush’s head suddenly lifted. His ears twitched.

“Something wrong, boy?” Rocky asked.

Rush growled—just a little—and faced the far wall. His sensors flicked red.

Then—beep. One of the lab terminals chimed.

Kalinka stood. “That’s not scheduled. I locked that one out of sync hours ago.”

She jogged over, fingers dancing across the keyboard. The screen flashed, then stabilized.

“False ping,” she said. “But it came from outside.”

Roll frowned. “Outside where?”

Kalinka paused. “Not just the building. Outside the city grid.”

She and Rocky exchanged a glance.

Roll’s comm clicked. Dr. Light’s voice came through, sharp. “Team, check power routing. Something just spiked across the northern data spine—subsystem we thought was dormant.”

Rocky was already strapping on his helmet.

Kalinka hesitated.

“…Want me to trace it?”

Roll gently pulled her back. “We’ve got it, Kalinka. But send us the coordinates.”

Kalinka nodded, a little reluctantly, and transferred the data.

As Roll and Rocky left, Kalinka stood alone in the low-lit room, her screen still pulsing faintly with the last trace packet.

She stared at it.

Then whispered:

“Please don’t be him…”

Kalinka watched the trace linger. Still pulsing. Still wrong.

She keyed in a deeper scan—manual override, no automation. Just instinct. Just what Papa taught her.

The terminal flickered, then spat back a return ping.

ORIGIN NODE: 7x/SkYR-DUST.
TRACE TYPE: Spoofed Root Protocol.
IDENTIFIER: [W_HeuristicFailSafe.EXE]
TIMESTAMP: CORRUPTED

Kalinka’s stomach dropped.

“…It’s a Wily node,” she whispered. “But this one’s not supposed to exist.”

A second later, a ghost image flashed and disappeared.

Not code.

A face.

It wasn’t Wily—not the real one. But a corrupted version of his hologram. Unfinished. Looping. Watching.

Then, something stranger—a signature scrawled in a separate data lane. Not machine-code.

// Catch me if you can.

The style—glitchy, rhythmic, almost poetic—was different.

Waltz.

Kalinka staggered back, her pulse racing. “No way…”

The screen fuzzed out. Completely blank.

Then—

SUBNET AUTHORIZATION DETECTED
DECOY ENGAGED
GOODBYE, KALINKA

All the lab lights flickered.

Rocky’s voice buzzed in over comms: “Kalinka? What just happened?!”

She gripped the edge of the table.

“I—don’t know. It was a trace—no, three traces. Wily’s failsafe. A false location tag. Then Waltz—I think it was Waltz—piggybacked a message into the code lane. And then… it just dumped.”

Roll’s voice came next: “You’re sure the signal didn’t spread?”

“No viral behavior. No propagation. It wasn’t trying to infect us—it was trying to spook us.”

A pause.

Then Dr. Light, low and grave: “This wasn’t a breach. This was a probe. Someone’s testing how alert we are.”

Rush growled again. He was staring out the window this time.

Toward the sky.

Kalinka whispered:

“They’re not gone. Not yet.”

Dust swirled under Rocky’s boots as he and Roll descended the stairwell, flashlights cutting through the grime. The air was dense with static, like the building itself was holding its breath.

“Kalinka said the ping came from beneath here,” Roll muttered, stepping lightly. “But there’s no relay tower, no signal boosters. Just… ruins.”

Rocky’s voice was quiet. “Which makes it exactly the kind of place Wily would hide something.”

They reached the basement level. A sealed bulkhead loomed ahead, half-buried under years of rubble and soot. Someone had painted over the original emblem—but Roll wiped it clean.

Underneath:
W-Lab: Prototype Node #0 — Project R.E.B.I.R.T.H.

Roll’s eyes narrowed. “Never seen this prefix before.”

Rocky stared, heart pounding. “I have.”

He stepped forward, touched the control panel.

It opened.

Behind the door, a cold chamber buzzed to life. Power flickered on in segments—row after row of glass capsules, lining the walls like forgotten coffins. Inside each one: incomplete frames, robotic limbs, shattered optics. Failed bodies.

And in the center, a circular pod, active.

Not empty.

Roll stepped forward, buster raised. “That one’s alive.”

The pod hissed open.

Smoke spilled out.

Then the figure stepped forward.

It wasn’t Wily. It wasn’t a Robot Master.

It was a girl.

Small. Pale. Wires trailing from her back like a ghost's veil. Her eyes opened—glitching blue, then red, then empty.

Her voice was digitized static.

“Designation… ███ corrupted… loading fallback...
Hello, Mega Man. I dreamed of your voice.”

Rocky froze. “What… is she?”

From behind the glass walls, monitors crackled to life.

A recording played—Wily’s voice, young, manic.

“Project Thanatos predated everything. A synthetic mind. Not a soldier. Not a master. A seed. Waltz was only the second draft.”

“This one was my first.”

The girl twitched.

Roll whispered, “She’s not a Robot Master…”

Rocky stared in horror.

“She’s a failsafe.”

Suddenly, the ground trembled. The remaining capsules began to open—some empty, some twitching with corrupt, half-formed AI.

“Contingency protocol recognized,” said the lab’s speaker system.

“Rebirth cycle initiated.”

Alarms blared.

Roll grabbed Rocky’s arm. “We have to go!”

But the girl—the prototype—just watched him, unblinking.

“I’m awake now.”

And the lab locked shut behind them.