Another Destiny

[Proto Man]

Before Omniverse became a thing, I played Proto Man on this website's spiritual predecessor.

The story I had for him was an adaptation of Mega Man 3, albeit with my own unique spin. Below was the first post I wrote for him:

Power…. Failing. Recommend immediate cessation of expenditure. The words flashed on the android’s internal display and were accompanied by a few flickering warning signs.

“God… damn it!”

With a grunt, Proto Man fell to his knees. Clutching a gloved hand to his chest, the android sucked air into lungs that didn’t exist. Had he been human, sweat would undoubtedly be staining his temples and awkwardly moistening the hair inside his helmet. Twenty feet in front of him, another robot watched with a grin as his opponent huffed and heaved on the ground.

“Just lie down, Proto Man; you can’t hope to defeat me.” Although the other Robot Master lacked the finer intonation and speech patterns of his more advanced ilk, he was not without his fare share of evil bantering capabilities.

“You’re not intimidating, Drawl Man.” With a grin, Proto Man firmly planted a red, metal boot on the ground in front of him. A beat later, he clenched his synthetic teeth together and rose up to his feet. Extending a hand, the prototype android clenched his fist, and all of a sudden—

—nothing happened. A message popped up in the corner of the robot’s field of vision that spelled out the situation in rigid, unsympathetic red letters. Power levels critical. Proto Buster inaccessible. Lowering his hand, Proto Man watched as Drawl Man threw a hand out to his side like a diva. The next moment, the metal fingers closed around the high-tech revolver on the cowboy Robot Master’s belt.

“Dr. Wily is going to be so pleased when I bring your body to him.” Drawl Man’s mouth twitched, which meant he was trying to smile but lacked the necessary level of sophistication. Most of the Wily’s Robot Masters were designed with the sole purpose to destroying things and bringing and end to all living things. As a result, they almost universally have limited vocabularies and plastic expressions. There were always exceptions, like the narcissistic Shadow Man and the awkwardly compassionate Top Man.

Unfortunately, Drawl Man needed neither high-level sentience nor elaborate facial nerves to beat down Proto Man. The cowboy-themed android had simply managed to pounce on his opponent when he was down. As the very first ‘Robot Master,’ Proto Man was not without his flaws. His creator, Dr. Light, had yet to perfect the hybrid nuclear-solar power cores that served to fuel his machines. The incomplete and untested core that went into Proto Man was rarely stable, and there were times when the fluctuations of energy were almost too painful to bear. The constant pain and fear of dying that haunted the robot’s early days was only compounded by loneliness. Who could you talk to when you were the only one of you kind? The closest thing to Proto Man before the creation of the extensive line of Robot Masters had been the computer AI, which was as close to sentience as a few circuits and chipsets could be.

So Proto Man ran away. He kept running and running until his paint started to peel and his boots began to rust. It was then that Dr. Wily, an old assistant of Light’s who had since gone certifiably insane, found him and promised him the gift of a life without an expiration date. The scientist fixed the glaring design flaws but refused to correct all the outdated problems unless Proto Man helped him get revenge on Dr. Light. And while the prototype had his daddy issues, he wasn’t the type to commit patricide. In an attempt to flee from Dr. Wily’s headquarters, he’d been overwhelmed by an assortment of the madman’s robotic creatures.

“Come on, now, Drawl Man, we can talk this out.” With an attempted smile, the cowboy drew his revolver and put a round of energy through Proto Man’s chest. The concentrated round shattered the prototype’s chest armor and exploded out through the other side. Tiny bolts of electricity danced out from the small hole as a slew of warnings began to pile up on Proto Man’s display. Before the robot could read the first one, the screen went black and all of his functions stopped.