MegaMan NT Warrior (Rockman) Fan Fiction ❯ Between Friends ❯ Episode Eight ( Chapter 8 )

Between Friends

By Simon Woodington

Previously: Alia adapts Zero's Dark Armor while Dr. Silvane and Minister Cadius embark upon a theological discussion about Our Favorite Reploids...

Episode Eight

"Tron! Why are you here?!" a slender, blond haired girl declared frantically. The brunette opposite her turned up her nose with a smug grin.

"Well what are you so worried about? Was it something I said, Roll?" she replied confidently. "Goodness, what a fuss over lil' ol' me!"

Roll frowned, shamed, bowing her red-capped head. One hand rubbed the other elbow nervously.

"I... I'm sorry. Rock-"

"You promised not to talk about him," Tron said bitterly. "It's just us girls. No Servebots, no Data. No perverted professors, either."

"He isn't! I don't know why you believe that," Roll sighed.

"Never mind," Tron demurred, trotting over to Roll's sofa and sitting with legs crossed. "I hear you met someone in town!"

"He just looks like my Father, that's all!"

"Didn't he save you from a barrage of missiles?" she stated pointedly, meeting Roll's eyes and leaning forward.

"Missiles you launched?" Roll replied tersely.

"Huh, but they weren't aimed at you,"she chuckled weakly in defense. "That lout is always putting you in danger. I would never!"

"Tell the truth, now. Would you do it to get revenge?" Roll asked from two cushions away. "Blondie bait, right?"

Tron became abruptly sheepish, eyes lowered, hands gripping her cushion while she rubbed the carpet with her bare feet. She bit her lip.

"Maybe last year, but after the Motherlode was found, Roll, I can't anymore. You..." she didn't finish. Roll's soft eyes dropped also.

"Yes, I know. Is it just because of that?" Squeamish, hesitant.

Tron closed her eyes, inhaled, exhaled, and sought Roll's worrisome blues.

"I quit. I'm strictly legitimate now. Tiesel quit too. He's on full time at the store," she gasped out all in one breath. Roll's eyes stayed wide for a minute.

"Oh! Doesn't he get... you know..."

"Bored? Who cares! It's his fault, attacking Rock that way. Now he can't dig anymore, the great lummox."

Silence tampered with the lights as a wind shook the Flutter.

"I'm tired of the danger. There was a time we were invincible, but I don't know what I'd do if Tiesel died," Tron continued voice dropping, face clouding with sorrow. "We barely argue anymore. He's half my brother... not the same."

Roll shook her head, thoughts rampant, mostly oriented on the day Tiesel's vendetta and lack of discipline had nearly cost his life, all due to the erratic explosive power of Roll's - then child genius - weapon. Roll remanded herself again, remembering the vow she had taken to never repeat the error by building another weapon.

"...Ever!" she whispered, body curled forward.

"Uh? Roll? Did you say something?" Tron asked, mildly concerned. Roll said nothing, breathing unsteadily. "Roll? Are you okay?"

Tron shifted over to her friend's side and took stock of the glimmering trails on her cheeks. She reached, and touching each shoulder, denied her usual response to emotional adversity.

"The Island, Roll...it's quiet. Just a tour around the city. Beautiful Central Town! No digging and no unplanned combat!" she promised. Roll leaned against Tron, her cap tipped to the side, exposing a bright blond pigtail and forlorn face.

"I was wrong, too," Tron said again, wrapping her gloved hands around Roll carefully. "I don't like Rock, but I don't hate him either. We're not enemies anymore."

Tron had forgiven Roll, and even Tiesel had managed to come to terms with his mistake, and what it had cost him. There was no hatred between them. Coping with life as a cyborg - and not a Digger - left him for want, though she heard he was engaged to be married. Tron pulled back and held Roll in a fixed gaze.

"Why don't we go now."

Roll wiped her face with her gloved hands, sniffing. Tron proffered a tissue.

"Thank you," she replied shakily, applying the offering. "Yes, let's go."

Tron watched Roll stand, cap in hand before she returned it to her head.

"You didn't bring any Servebots, did you?"

Tron rolled her eyes innocently.

"A couple..."

"Good! It's you turn to fly. I'm too... shaky now to do it."

Tron rose with a mock huff, donned a champion's haughty smile and roundly retorted:

"How can I help it if all you want to do is lay around, eat, and play video games?"

Roll giggled.

"Why should we girls always do the hard work?"

-

Why Tron?

"I am not her anymore, Roll. You may have survived the transition..."

You apply the term inaccurately. I did not 'survive', I healed. I grew up, Roll replied passionately.

Tron's new dark haired body was complete, save the software that would run it, residing in a temporary drone host. The silver limbed drone regarded the svelte, inert figure with its single optic receptor and made awed noises.

Are you ready to upload?

"You know, Roll, you're the only one I could trust."

Trust?

"Yeah..." she said, then walked over to the niche into which the drone would fit. "Okay, let's do it."

Roll ran hand over the panel, beginning, initial power tests of Tron's new body. No failures pockmarked the procedure. Then, diagnostic and shell component tests. Fully functional. Though the list, each system benchmarked nominal operating parameters for a GA rated Hunter.

Tron voluntarily quit all active processes and 'locked' her memory into a static file, so that Roll could perform the transfer. She was literally, in this state, a defenseless as paper to searing wind. Roll could decompile her and alter any files she deemed unfit' psychological errors, for instance.

To do such, I would be no better than Dr. Wily! It would be molestation most atrocious! I cannot betray her that way.

Without a solitary miswrite, Tron's file locked code was uploaded to her new shell, along with the dependencies, dormant in Roll's own system. Duplicating cross-linked files to ensure proper operation, Roll performed a comprehensive sweep for hidden files, which may have attributed to this event... and found none.

Once satisfied with the CRC codes, Roll booted Tron's kernel, and her chocolate brown eyes opened within moments, glinting with intelligence and awareness. Tron's eyes scanned the scene and fell upon Roll. A frown of regret formed upon her face.

"It's not like it was, back then, Roll. Maybe it's okay if you can't forgive me this time," she sighed.

Roll could compare the events on a relative time-track, parallel, sequentially, or in any order that pleased her, but her heart had no answer first. At moments like this the sub-sonic humming her of her body became audible as though the audio filters were not programmed correctly. Auto-Repair reported proper function, however.

Then it came.

"Perhaps I am to blame for this. I was not a victim of my father's genius. He could not have anticipated that result."

"You knew what you were giving up," Tron said.

"I knew what I had to do... ah?"

Scarlet floodlights had activated, triggered by the internal security systems Ident scanners.

{Unauthorized access detected! Two registered Maverick Hunters have breeched the perimeter defenses. What are your orders, Miss Roll?}

"It must be X and Zero!" Tron blurted, stepping out of her niche. "I'm ready!"

"Tron, no! Please!" Roll pleaded.

"I must..."

"What of our promise?"

Tron's cool eyes narrowed, irresolute.

"It is hard coded - I cannot defy it!"

Momentarily perplexed, Roll prepared her wrist blade and shield.

"Roll, I am sorry! If... I am lost soon, do not look for me. I will find my way," she said, penitent but decided.

"I don't...No! Tron!"

Her red and black figure were consumed by a narrow sliver of light that seemed to leap upwards, removing her from the sorrowful scene. Roll bowed her head, consumed by the fear for her friend's life.

X, meanwhile, had tamed the security system with his Personal Identification Signal, so the pair entered 'Testing and Final Production' with no apparent difficulty, only to find Roll as silent as she had once been deadly.

-

"This isn't wise."

"It isn't rocket science, sweetie," Ruth grinned, adjusting Yale's misaligned black necktie. "There. You look good in a suit."

"Thank you. You look good, too," he smiled, gazing at her navy dress and white shawl.

"Just 'look good'?" she fired back gently, wiping something from his sleeve and looping her arm into his.

"It's something about you... maybe it's your demeanor," he decided.

"Demeanor? Now that's flattery," she huffed, sarcastic. "Why don't you just comment on the hours I put into my hair? Isn't it in a poor state of disrepair? What about the fine arrangement? Yale, you're a catch, but as of now I'm not sure for what."

Yale frowned, casting his eyes away from the beautifully tressed and gowned woman of whose company he had the immediate pleasure, and chastised himself. Ruth, not an eight of an inch away, looked secretly dejected and wounded by his robotic complements. He plucked at his uncomfortable necktie and tired to remember this advice of his sister.

"Ruth," he began, taking her hands and seeking her clear, hazel brown eyes. "You are stunning, and I thank you for accepting this invitation tonight. Signas wouldn't have fit that dress nearly as well."

The roboticist chuckled politely and smiled winningly, the affair brightening her soft features.

"You have possibly the most amazing smile I have ever seen," he said, the words darting from his mouth before he was quite aware of them. Instantly the effect doubled.

"Oh now you've got it," she laughed delightedly, genuinely pleased.

"I never noticed you before, for anything other than your intelligence. Sounds unmanly, doesn't it? You are lovely."

She squinted a sweet warning at him, and he nodded.

"We won't be late, though?" Ruth wondered.

"No. Not if we stay on course," Yale confirmed, leaning forward and placing hands on the front seat. "How much longer?"

"There seems to be a delay, sir. We've been asked to maintain a stationary orbit in the pre-docking ring," responded a grey robot of diminutive size behind the driver's controls.

Yale nodded, then paused, staring at the robot.

"Do I know you?"

"No sir. We've never met. I know you though," the robot said hastily.

"But I'm sure.." Yale asserted ponderously. "You know... you look a lot like Blues."

"Yes sir. Preferred style for my series. I get that a lot," agreed the robot. "I hear that Blues was Rock's brother."

"Correct, but he's been missing for years," Ruth interjected suspiciously. "What series was that? I didn't hear you."

"You didn't ask, ma'am. Light-001 Classic Design. I am an early revision of that series."

"I see," Yale nodded at Ruth, who maintained her cautious attitude. "What's the delay?"

"B&E in progress. Unauthorized people on the grounds with homemade non-lethal weapons."

"Non-lethal. Paint guns?" Ruth suggested.

"Yes ma'am. I'm sorry, I don't understand," said the robot, looking back over his shoulder through black helmet mounted shades.

"Anti-sematists protesting the current establishment. They use red paint to symbolize the blood spilled by our 'mismanagement' of the Reploid and Virus crises. Typically they target local officials and high-level robotic engineers," Yale supplied with a dose of sympathy. "No one's ever hurt, and really they've got a point, but who can change things now?"

"Right. Damn. I'm getting soft," the robot cursed.

Ruth grinned at Yale's gaping maw, more than slightly amused.

"Blues," she said.

"Yeah. Look, I'm not a good liar. Never was," Blues finally admonished with a sigh. "I gotta apologize to you. This self-willed crap is about as fun as Rock at a dinner party."

"Why are you doing this?"

Blue oriented on Yale with a wry grin.

"Piloting your car? It's good credits."

Yale looked stunned and disbelieving.

"No, really. I've done some pretty stupid things to pay my way over the last century, and I've managed to stay legit with you guys until now," he continued.

"Until now?" Ruth prodded.

"Forte wants me to kidnap you two. Here I am thinking 'Forte you moron, how stupid is that?' For once there's peace on Earth! No robot wars, no unnecessary death, no plague, and out with the virus for a bloody change! So we've got a minor economic disaster on our hands... man, I believe 'Unity' has realistic ideals. Not to mention you two are so damned cute..."

"Cute?"

"Quit parroting me, all right? Yale's right, you're gorgeous. You may a great couple, and I'll be damned if I'll let that nut screw you over. Forte's so unpredictable right now I can't be sure he'll kill you."

The venerable picture-perfect couple both paled as one.

"...and since the lollygagging wacko didn't have the sense to tap me, we have the chance to hide somewhere. Is there someplace we can all do that for a few days until X twigs that we're missing?"

"I have a bomb shelter," Yale offered.

"Where to?"

"North."

"Right on," Blues said, keying into manual control. The vehicle lurched slightly as they launched out of the pre-docking ring. "By the way, I'm sorry. I was hoping to stay honest."

Yale was nonplussed, but Ruth spoke up.

"Why did you agree to his plan?"

"I owed him one."