“Mm?”, the dark-clothed commander replied simply to his underling.

“At twenty-two hours and thirty-three minutes, the U.S. Army authorized the use of limited-range fusion bomb on the abnormality-“

“The robot.”, the commander corrected curtly.

“Yes…the robot. Well, it appears the robot is unaffected by the bomb and still mobile. Only surface damage was inflicted.”

“And I suppose now the U.S. Army is now swallowing their pride and asking us for our help?”

“You assume correctly, sir.”, the advisor smirked.

“You already know my answer, as do they: ‘no.’ New Center City simply does not have the time or the resources to waste on some hellhole city in the middle of a used-up continent. Besides…the Neo Shinsengumi has far more important matters to attend to as it stands.”

“I’ll inform them right away…with our most sincere regrets, of course.”

“Do so…And Mackenzie, do fetch Hayasa for me. I have another job for our hitokiri this evening…”

“Yes sir.”

* * * *

After what seemed like hours of sprinting, the small parka-clad man found himself down the street from the monstrous mecha. It wasn’t until he was a block away when the sheer size of the monster came into scope, and Gary had obvious doubts as to what his battle plan should include.

“Damn…I’m here, but now what? No way I can freeze any part of him fast enough without my gear, and I can’t even use my Ice Slasher…”

Gary’s planning was rudely interrupted by an incoming blast of hazy-blue light that bore down upon him like a comet, leaving him a mere second to leap clear of the blast. Thanks to his Final Generation body, however, he was able to jump a full thirty feet away just in time, and make another leap to avoid a follow-up blast.

“Ugh! This won’t do! This big ugly prick can just keep pelting me with his death ray until I slip up! I’ve gotta find cover, and fast…”

A double handspring eventually landed him in an alleyway out of Pulsar’s view, and a jog down the narrow passageway took him another block away. Carefully, so to avoid Pulsar’s field of vision, he peeked up at the monster to see if it had managed to keep track of him. Luckily for him, it didn’t. It’s head swayed from side to side, scanning the street at its feet to hunt for it’s new prey.

“Hmm…that’s odd. A minute before I showed up this thing was just indiscriminately blowing crap up. He catches a glance of me and it’s suddenly concerned with one tiny person? Something doesn’t add up here.”, Gary thought.

Behind him, he noticed a second-hand store window with an old-fashioned mannequin, and a plan came to mind slowly.

“Hey, ya big dumb bastard! Over here! Looky here!”

Rocks pelted the left eye of the giant beetle, and it’s hearing sensor clearly picked up the mocking tone of the annoying little gnat at it’s feet. Swinging it’s body around towards the source of the disturbance, Pulsar launched another flurry of blue death upon the street corner, and watched as the white and green parka it had seen moments before burn within nano-seconds.

Oddly enough, Pulsar’s massive body came to a halt at that very instant and remained still for several minutes afterwards.

It wasn’t until a small creak from under it’s right eye broke the silence of the night air, and a single man peeked his head out towards the site of the flaming pit where the parka wearing man was incinerated.

“Son of a…Jim, you trigger happy moron! Ya melted him! We weren’t supposed to kill the little runt!”

“Oh, really now? Well, I’ve got some great news for ‘Jim’, then!”, Gary yelled from atop the monster’s head above the man’s vantage point.

“Shit! He’s right on top of us!”, the neatly uniformed man yelled as he pulled a small sub-machine gun from his belt and strafed the crest of his giant tank-like robot.

Gary rolled away, but not before taking two bullet wounds to his right shoulder, as he was caught off-guard by the hidden gun. Still, he didn’t have time to address his wounds, as he knew the man was probably moving back inside Pulsar’s head and use the monster to shake him off. Gary knew he wouldn’t be able to lure the man out a second time.

Not nearly as gracefully as he’d like to, Gary launched himself off the edge of the monster’s brow and caught the edge of the entrance hatch just as the man was closing it. As soon as he latched on, Gary sent a freezing chill across the hatch, which crept up the man’s hands as he tried to pull it shut. Feeling the extreme cold, he tried to let go, but it was far too late. His hands were frozen solid to the door.

Flipping upward, Gary twisted in mid air and his shoes made violent contact with the trapped man’s chest, sending him backwards into the control center, but without his hands as they remained firmly attached to the escape hatch.

“Oh God! Keller!”, screamed the man’s co-pilot.

“Great news, Jim! Turns out I’m not so dead after all!”, Gary gloated as he peeked in.

“I’ll fix that!”, yelled Jim as he wrenched his own sidearm from his holster and fired round after round at Gary, who managed to duck outside this time.

“Hmm, must be a pair of rookies if they’re doing the whole ‘shoot first’ routine. Lame.”, Gary thought to himself. “Now, how to take care of this guy? I’d like to keep him around and get some answers if I can, but if he keeps waving that damned gun around…”

Gary glanced around the outside of the monster’s head/cockpit for some sort of inspiration. That inspiration came in the form of some spent casings fired moments before by Keller.

“Pay dirt.”, Gary smirked as he picked up the closest casing and listened for the now nervous-as-a-cat man to run out of ammo and be forced to reload. It didn’t take very long.

As soon as Gary heard the empty clip hit the metal floor, he spun around the corner and stuck out his hands, his thumb behind the spent casing, which now sported a new icy tip. With a flick of his thumb, Gary shot the impromptu icicle round into the man’s knee, causing the man to drop to the floor under his own weight.

“Gyahhh! My…My friggin’ knee! You sh- shot my knee!”

“Glad you noticed. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to know what the hell this little joy ride was all about. Who sent you?”

“Go to…Hell!”, was all the man said as his head suddenly burst apart from within.

“What the hell? A bomb?! Inside that guy’s head?”, Gary yelled in shock. Looking back, he noticed the other man whom he dispatched earlier was also missing his cranium. “The hell is going on here? Some sort of extreme silence measure?”

As he looked around the cockpit, he glanced at one of the many display screens and noticed a small, discrete countdown ticking away in it’s corner. It read a mere seven-point-fifty-three seconds remaining.

Instinctively, Gary doubled back and tumbled out of the giant mechanical beetle’s head and free-fell towards the street below. Just before he smacked into the broken cement below, he heard a massive explosion from within the monster’s head- a bomb meant to cover-up whatever information it’s computers held, and thusly protect whomever was really behind this plot.

Gary landed hideously on the street below, his already injured shoulder crashing directly onto a street curb. Robot Master or not, a near seventy-foot drop will put a dent in most anything, and Gary was no exception. He felt his tightly-fitted shoulder socket twist and muscle it’s way free from it’s normal position and completely sever itself from the rest of his body. His arm remained attached to his torso by his muscle cords alone.

Able to feel pain much like any other human being, Gary screamed in agony as soon as he landed. His skeleton may be made of the strongest metal known to man, but that made things worse when his bones managed to wrench themselves free.

“Ahhh! Ahh, god! Dammit!”, Gary spat. He remained on the street for a few minutes, cursing aloud and uttering obscenities left and right. After ten minutes of special “me time”, he managed to wrangle himself to his feet and cradle his severely ruined arm and look up at the smoking cranium of the monster above.

“…Ahh…Gyah…I…I’ve gotta see…R- Roll…Gotta get…this fixed…”, he rationalized, and let his body be consumed by a white glow.

It had been five years since he last teleported. He always hated it.

_______________________________________________

Chapter 3 Extras: Pulsar and the HTF

Height: Seventy-four feet, nine inches
Weight: 465 tons (276 tons without outer armor)
Number of Crew Members: Minimum of two (can have a total of six for maximum efficiency)
Affiliation: Unknown
Equipment: Neutron Ray, Arm and Leg Sickles, Claws, Jump Jets, Five Different Vision Modes

Originally designed and built by Dr Wily over twenty years ago, the giant beetle-type robot that later became known as Pulsar was defeated fairly easily by Rockman. Years later, it’s body was discovered by the HTF (Human Tradition Force)- a group of men and women dedicated to keeping jobs around for human beings instead of robots and nano-factories. Because of their extreme tendencies towards violence to get their message across, they were labeled terrorists and often clashed with the various armies of the world, the Tetsu Roku, and the Neo Shinsengumi. While their main forces have long been destroyed, the HTF exists in small numbers to this day, but with nowhere near it’s previous influence.

As the HTF was comprised of many brilliant, yet out of work minds, they often improved upon the designs of the robots they acquired. Mostly, their goal was to display not only their own talents, which they claimed were underused and being wasted, but also to show just how dangerous robots inherently were in the hands of someone with the willpower to cause harm. In many ways, they carried the torch of Dr. Wily after his death. Their upgraded creations could cause massive property damage in mere minutes, but they rarely targeted humans specifically.

Originally, Pulsar was completely automated and sent to wreck havoc on the Ohio city of Cincinnati and it’s surrounding suburbs. Utterly outclassed from the start, the Army merely stalled the beast’s rampage until the Tetsu Roku arrived and engaged in an hour-long battle with the monster, during which Cincinnati was completely leveled. Pulsar was finally destroyed when Gutsman and Bombman set a trap for the monster and quite literally blew its head off.

It was long assumed that the remains of the giant machine were disposed of once and for all by the local clean up crew.

Next Chapter

Index