Chapter Text
Rock returned to the lab moderately damaged. The synthetic skin on his right arm had been burnt off by the acid of Forte's plasma blasts, the ceratanium casing on his buster arm got mildly dented, but the chestplate of his battle armor got corroded down the middle, the synthetic skin of his cheeks and jawline got bruised. Roll treated the synthetic skin and disinfected it with soap and water with the tenderness of a loving sister, even if she and Rock were programmed to act like siblings.
"The fights are getting out of hand. This has to stop." Roll referred to the fights between him and Forte. Despite that the Roboenza incident had subsided months ago, the Special Wily Number bot had been persistently challenging Rock. As much as the Light bot had reminded Bass time and time again that his main directive is to fight for everlasting peace and he had no intention to fight him for sport. Forte egged him on to fight regardless.
"I know! I already told him multiple times that I'm done fighting him. He's more dense than a Metool cap." Rock stated. The Wily bot had a way to push Rock's buttons was an understatement, Bass would have a field day if he knew how to make the Light bot blow a fuse.
"What he needs is an attitude adjustment." Roll commented as she finished cleaning the synthetic skin.
"He needs a lot more than an attitude adjustment. No amount of reprogramming will fix his massive ego." Rock scoffed before he stood from the metal chair and removed his damaged breast plate for Roll to inspect for other damages Bass left on Rock's anatomy.
"Don't be so sure. There have been instances that with rewiring and recalibrating the interface and some other modifications, it could help alter his A.I. Depending on the right frequency." Roll humored him with mediocre technobabble whilst she found a gaping wound on the synthetic skin, globules of oil dripping before she grabbed a paper towel and dabbed the area.
"This is Bass we're talking about, not just some random automaton looking for a mod at Auto's shop." Rock gritted his teeth as his pain receptors spiked. Roll dabbed at the injury. "Ow!"
"I know," Roll said as she finished cleaning his arm, "and he's not the only one who needs an attitude adjustment."
At Wily's Skull Fortress, Bass returned with a damaged voice box, the left wing of his helmet corroded with the acid of Mega Man's plasma blast, his red optic irises glinting ominously as he descended to his chamber. He removed his helmet and tossed it as his voice box let out a distorted growl which sounded more like forced static noise. The special Wily bot sat on a metal stool before he coursed his metallic, fortenium fingers through his synthetic jet black hair as his programming assessed the situation.
Forte's response ranged from frustration, indignation, anger, mostly rage before he opened up a toolbox since Wily was stingy when it came to installing upgrades. Forte had to make modifications for himself by himself which put him at risk from disabling his auto repair function. He opened himself up by using a screwdriver and adjusted a fractured mirror on his desk to get a clear view of his voice box and how he was going to replace the voice box with a new one he pulled out from the drawer.
Even though the SWN robot like Forte didn't have many options, at least he managed to store the parts he needed given how he barely had furniture. He only had two mattresses, a metal desk and a bureau. The desk chair he was sitting on at the moment was an old one Wily had tossed out nearly a year ago and Forte kept it, at least it was better than the dented wobbly stool Treble broke.
The support unit hopped on the mattress, laid down and watched Forte grumble static before his aural cone picked up the static sound and fell silent when the Wily bot removed the damaged voice box. Treble's peripheral vision snagged on the way Forte mouthed a few syllables angrily from the angle the cracked mirror was placed. Treble rolled his eyes, even if only Forte himself knew what he uttered while tightening the hold of the voice box he picked out and screwed the part in place, it was evident that he was grumbling about MegaMan.
The support unit pricked one of his ears whilst the black-clad Wily bot was testing the apparatus. Forte's gripes were clear as he tweaked the pitch, volume, and speed of the voice that came out.
"It's bad enough that I put up with the stingy old geezer." Forte spoke, adjusting the pitch and decibel of his voice. "He can rebuild the damn fortress from scratch but he doesn't want to give me a fucking upgrade to kill the blue dweeb." Forte put down the screwdriver then started to imitate Wily's accent. "It's always, I can't afford you ruining my plans. I have better things to worry about like how to pay for the hole you made. The fortress won't build itself! He has thousands of metools to fix the fortress, and he blames me for not being efficient."
Treble let out a mock yawn despite that he doesn't fall asleep like an actual lycan.
"Now I need to recalibrate my buster to increase the firepower while reducing time to charge." Forte pressed a button located on his tricep to open his buster and check for the damage and his inner workings. The lid that encased the majority of his left forearm was exposed while Treble sniffed, already smelling the stench of Fortenium (or Bassnium) permeating the room.
The SWN humanoid robot had acquired a penchant to make his own self repairs even at the risk of contracting malware, one bad adjustment could disable his buster or damage the controls of releasing his ammo. He couldn't risk losing the one thing he can control. Treble didn't count because despite being pre-programmed to assist Bass in missions, he had a mind of his own.
The support unit could corner the cynical roboticist into aiding Bass with the repairs, but had his own preferences as well; like not being disturbed on sleep mode, pouncing on Metools for sport or being petted by females. Treble's artificial intelligence fabricated the mental image of being petted by Roll or any other female-coded robot. The further the pseudo-lycan went with his reverie and slowly winding his way to sleep mode, his peripheral vision darted to Forte who began twitching and cursing when he lost the mobility of his left arm.
Treble rolled his eyes, expecting the usual tirade but jolted when Forte immediately shut down and fell to the floor in a loud clunk from malfunctioning and the support unit scrambled out of the mattress and dashed out of the room to find Dr. Wily.
Back at Light's laboratory, Roll had finished treating Rock's injuries and resumed to the kitchen to check on the dinner she was preparing for her creator. Dr. Light would return home in any minute whilst she peered on the steaming pot and opened the lid to verify if the stew was finished. Rush rushed in towards Rock and barked enthusiastically, wagging his tail just as Rock petted the canine support unit. Rush licked Rock's left forearm just as the Light-bot embraced Rush. The support unit's aural cone perceived the hushed tones of his humanoid robot friend saying; "Who's a good boy?"
Rush barked, as if replying: "You are!"
The door opened just as Dr. Light came in with a slightly drained expression when Roll served the dishes on the dining room table while the aged man took off his lab coat and placed it on the coat rack. While his footsteps were heard, Rock and Rush stood by the living room and stood nearby the dining room. After a draining day from work, he was greeted by his family, or at least two of his children. "Good evening, father!"
The creases of his eyes softened and he smiled wryly at the warm welcome, Rush also barked to welcome him.
"Dinner is ready." Roll enunciated as she went to hold her human progenitor by the arm like how a daughter wanted to cling onto her father.
"How was your day at work?" Rock asked despite acknowledging that Dr. Light was emotionally drained from the meeting and physically stricken due to his age, Thomas needed to ventilate what he felt regardless if it was for his mental health or to feel that someone cared about him.
"It went well to say the least, though calling it exhausting is an understatement." Dr. Light replied as Rock pulled the chair for the roboticist to sit on, at least he was briefly distracted looking at the dinner Roll made for him; mashed potatoes, green peas, spinach, chicken stew, and a smidge of gravy. The Light bots sat at the table with their creator to emulate a family dinner, though Rock wanted to prevent the doctor from seeing the injury Bass inflicted so he kept his right arm on his lap and had an empty energy can full of water.
Roll passed artificially flavored packets designed for androids and gave them to Rock, though the light bot surreptitiously slipped some for Rush to ingest. Even if androids like Rock and Roll were able to eat, Rock wouldn't have the appetite anyway.
Forte was deactivated when Dr. Wily checked on the hardware of the humanoid robot. His humanoid face made it seem like he was asleep but if one opened the synthetic eyelid, the irises were pitch black, lifeless. The chassis attached to Forte's torso was opened for the grouchy roboticist to inspect. It was perfectly clear that Forte made his own modifications, most of them weren't deemed compatible with the Fortenium powering his system. The metalloid adapter which had been smuggled months prior by Bass himself wasn't supposed to be installed nowhere near his diaphragm nor the ammunition should deviate from the buster to make room for the plasma casing that should be sealed to prevent the buster from overheating.
"This idiot was trying to self-destruct! No wonder he short circuited! Look at this mess!" Dr. Wily found a stray wire unplugged and two pairs of miniature plugs switched and cross wired. "Schiße! What the hell was he thinking?!" The sinister roboticist reorganized the wiring and removed the modifications Forte made on his own one by one. Beads of sweat trailed down from Wily's bald head and wiped away some of it with the back of his gray-haired hands. Just when he thought he was done repairing the Wily-bot, he found another foreign device attached near the back of Forte's endoskeleton and Dr. Wily pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I'm too old to deal with this." Dr. Wily thought as he suffered a headache from the stress and exhaustion. By the time Forte got reactivated, he tried to resume upgrading his buster but the weapon itself was disabled, or to be more precise, Dr. Wily disabled it as punishment. How the hell was he going to defeat Megaman without a buster?
"I'm gonna kill you, you saggy old geezer!" Forte roared as he ran towards the septuagenarian roboticist, ready to chuck a Metool he grabbed on the way from one of the corridors of the fortress and threw it at the doctor at an impressive distance that would make Strike Man jealous.
Wily, upon knowing what his black-clad boy-bot would do, took precautions in getting his robotic stunt double to take the damage in case his wily son turned violent from getting his buster mode removed. The head of the fake Dr. Wily got moderately dented from the impact of the Metool helmet-shell and the metallic wall as the spring jutted out from where the neck would be as Forte fumed.
"Of course the old man would pull this type of shit out of his shriveled rectum." Bass assessed as his crimson orbs scanned the lab from the sign of the doctor. He wanted to find his maker and destroy him, he was still angry that the old lunatic took away his buster, he was a killing machine for crying out loud. He wasn't this upset since he discovered that Dr. Wily had opted to make King II when the first one was annihilated and that happened nearly a decade ago. After all these years, not a single Robot Master came close to defeating the blue dweeb.
Not the Stardroids, not the Megaman Killers, not Copy, not Quint, not the Yellow Devil, not even Duo himself. Scratch that, Duo could but wouldn't do it because he was some sort of massive guardian who cares about the balance or some esoteric garbage he believed in. And Protoman doesn't count, that Light bot is obsolete anyway, doesn't matter how much of a smart aleck he is.
Not only Forte was upset about his buster mode being taken away from him, but now he had to figure out how he was going to defeat Megaman without using it. Forte's eyes darted at the broken Wily dummy and the empty Metool cap which gave him an idea.