The call came through at three in the morning. Naturally, everybody was asleep; the good doctor, slumped over at his desk, an unfinished gadget folded in his arms, awoke first. The buzz of the telephone was unmistakably harsh in his ears. He'd always wanted to replace that annoying sound with something more soothing, but his busy schedule forbade such luxuries.

Setting aside his still-skeletal invention (it would eventually turn into a newer, more efficient power cell for Mega Man's arm cannon) Dr. Light made a half-hearted lunge for the phone. He'd forever been sluggish in times of fatigue, and seldom managed to rouse himself to sufficient levels of consciousness without a good pot of coffee by his side. Naturally, there was no coffee present at the moment.

It took three tries for his bleary eyes to clear enough that he could grasp the receiver properly. Lifting it to a wizened ear, Light coughed, cleared his throat, and clicked the 'talk' button on the base of the phone. "Light here." It came out more along the lines of "Lickt hurr", however, his throat still hoarse from earlier that day (he'd given an extended lecture on robotic frame construction to throngs of excited students).

"Pardon me?" the voice on the other side inquired.

"Light here," the professor repeated, more clearly. It was a struggle to do so, however.

"Ahh, hello, sir. This is the Syphon City PD."

"You have any idea what time it is, son?"

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry to have disturbed you, but we need your help. Crime doesn't wait for the afternoon, you know."

Light rubbed his face, thoroughly annoyed. "Yeah, I know. Well, c'mon, out with it, if you would." His usually cordial manners fell to the wayside in the face of rough awakenings.

"Well, we have a bit of a situation, sir, and require the assistance of your robot."

"Wha, Rock? Er, Mega Man? What's the problem?" Visions of Wily danced through his head. It was enough to bring on a headache.

"There's a rogue robot loose in the city, sir, and he's stirring up a lot of trouble. Tore up our security bots pretty thoroughly."

"Oh, hell. Lemme guess, a certain doctor is behind it."

The officer understood instantly. "Well. . . we're not sure, sir. This thing is so fast that we can't get a positive ID on it. Plus, so far as we can tell, this is an isolated incident."

"Urgh." Light sighed, his mind rapidly attaining lucidity. "Well, give me the details."

-

Rock was woken within the hour, power cells fully charged. He did not appear the least bit tired, a state of mind Light thoroughly envied him. Being a robot looked pretty damn nice at times. Rush, his ever-faithful companion, lay curled at Rock's feet, canine eyes wide and alert.

"So, what's the call, doc?"

Dr. Light, still bereft of his usual tact, got right to the point. "There's a robot on the loose in Syphon City. The police out there need you to head in and bring it down."

Rock winced. He never much enjoyed killing his own kind, despite the fact that he'd done so hundreds of times. "Any idea who it is?"

Light shook his head, already messy white hair swaying to and fro chaotically. "Nope. They say the guy is too fast to pin a name on. Which is why they need you, of course."

Rock let out a breath of discontent. Mega Man the pro, Mega Man the hero. Robot killer supreme. It never seemed to end. "You think Wily's behind it?"

Light shook his head. "I doubt it. The whole thing lacks Wily's usual structuring. There's no plan behind it; just random chaos."

"I thought Wily was all about chaos, though."

Light rubbed his temples thoroughly. This next part would be hard to take. "This is different. The robot isn't trying to stir up the area, and weaken it for takeover. He's running around murdering people en masse."

The silence in the room was palpable.

"How many?"

"Forty. So far."

Light had never heard his creation swear before. But, then, this was new territory.

"You have to be kidding me. . . killing? Humans? I thought even Wily's robots were above that sort of thing."

"That's why I don't think this is Wily. He wants to rule the planet, not off the inhabitants. Unless he's popped a fuse or something in the last month, which I doubt."

Rock fell into brooding. This certainly was a fresh trick for a robot. Even when they went bonkers, they still usually retained one simple precept of their coding: you will not kill humans. It was an absolute basic of creating a robot, one even Wily abided by.

"Did he malfunction, maybe?"

Light shrugged. "Couldn't tell you. Only way to find out is for you to get out there and tear it apart."

Rock winced. Light, sensing the discomfort, patted his son in everything but substance on the shoulder.

"I know, I know. You hate this part. But robots can be rebuilt. Humans can't. You need to get out there and put a stop to this thing, regardless of what's wrong with it. Understand?"

A nod. Light, forever proud of his boy, tousled his spiky black hair.

"Good lad. All in a day's work for a hero, eh?"

Mega Man never felt much like a hero. "C'mon, Rush. Let's go."

-

Transport to Syphon City, as with any mapped locale, was simple: Mega Man leapt there. The technology behind it was one of Light's earliest patents. Set in coordinates, flick a mental switch, and the robot's molecules are partially disassembled and the reassembled at the proper place. Mega Man had done it so many times that the process was accomplished without any thought: to watch him do it was, for Light, always a bit of a debacle. The whole thing looked excruciatingly painful. No doubt that was why Light refused to do any human testing of the technology.

Sliding back out of his beam-like state, Mega Man surveyed the city. It was still dark, the sun not yet edging up over a sleepy horizon. The city streets, normally abandoned at this time of day, bustled with activity; indeed, it looked like a war zone.

Cars flipped over. Giant gashes in the concrete. Fires burning everywhere. Police officers, heavily clad in protective armour, darting here and there. Buildings torn apart. Bits of security bots scattered in every corner. Bodies.

Blood. Blood, blood, blood. Had he been capable of it, Mega Man would've vomited right then and there.

Rush, sensing turmoil in his master, rubbed up against Mega Man's leg. The blue bomber barely even noticed the sentiment. His augmented eyes were locked on horrors he'd never considered possible.

He'd read the history books before. Watched movies. Mankind was capable of so much wrong. Yet hearing about it second-hand was nothing to witnessing the truth of it all. Killing in the name of justice was one thing: but this, this. . . what was this? There was no justice in this. There didn't even seem to be a point.

As he stood there, bearings shaking with rage and revulsion, Mega Man was approached by an officer. It seemed miraculous that the man was alive, for he bore a huge gash across his armour. Mega Man could see his cloth uniform underneath. "You Mega Man?"

"Yeah. That's me."

"C'mon, I'll take you to the chief."

The chief was a huge man – presumably because he wore an exoskeleton to augment his skills – covered in dusty blue armour. He hefted an enormous energy rifle in both hands. Yet his enormous appearance did nothing to dispel the helplessness apparent in his stature, for every inch of him was decorated in deep nicks and slashes. Like his junior officer, it was only through the mercy of the killer that the chief still drew breath.

Shrugging off his helmet (he was, in fact, a bald man with a wagging moustache) the chief shook Mega Man's hand vigorously, balancing his rifle against one thick, metallic leg. "A pleasure. Glad you could make it out here so early."

"No problem. Where is he?"

The chief shook his head, setting his whiskers swaying. "Couldn't tell you. It let up and took off 'bout ten minutes ago. Last I saw it was up on that building over there," he thumbed towards a curling, spire-covered structure, "then vanished. Didn't get a good look at the thing, though."

"I can't believe how much destruction he caused. When did all this start?"

The chief, setting his rifle against a street sign, seated himself upon the sidewalk. It groaned under his weight. "I dunno. An hour ago, maybe? Two? It's been a bit of a blur. We've started counting just in bodies. Fifty-two now, by the way, including five of my men." His eyes settled off across the street, gazing at a fire hydrant, yet they seemed bound for the recent past instead. "This thing is unreal. Like nothing I've ever heard of. Faster than. . . hell, anything. It moves like the wind. One minute, you're fine, and the next, you've got a huge gash in you."

Mega Man swallowed hard. He mentally ran through long lists of any of Wily's robots that could fit the bill, but none sounded speedy enough. Quick Man, maybe?

"And he did all of this?"

The chief shook his head. "Not completely. The security bots had a hell of a time trackin' him, and wound up destroying a few things before being taken out themselves. They're not the smartest robots out there, y'know."

Nod. Stepping forward, Mega Man ran his fingers over the gashes on the chief's armour. His eyes turned into magnifying glasses, inspecting the sheered edges of each cut. Whatever had done this, it was incredibly sharp, and very well maintained; yet he doubted it was an energy weapon of any kind. A few tiny jagged spots saw to that conclusion.

"Was he using any weapons you could see?"

"Looked like it was throwin' these weird little disks. Hard to tell, though."

It was Quick Man's MO, all right, yet he didn't fit the bill in Mega Man's mind. His boomerangs weren't capable of this much damage. Besides, he was dead, and Mega Man doubted Wily would've rebuilt him just to destroy things like this. The old man generally dropped any projects that had previously failed him.

"We'll look around. Hopefully we can find this guy quick."

"Good luck. And be careful; it's dangerous as anything."

Mega Man exhaled deeply. "Please don't call us 'it'. The name is demeaning."