The Cure - II [Exemplary]

[Proto Man]

As night started to fall across the Pale Moors, Proto Man sat in a small room near the northern wall of the town. It wasn’t anything special, but Mireya had befriended the owner over the course of her recovery, and due to the building’s proximity to the walls, she had requested they use it for the night. The situation in town was still tense, and the pair of primes wanted to be on their way out before the sun came up again. Once word spread that Proto Man had returned from the Dante Verse, they expected to be pulled into whatever sort of struggle was happening behind the closed doors of the town’s inner circle.

“What are you working on?” Mireya muttered as she crouched down behind Proto Man and looked at the little device on the desk in front of him. It appeared to be a little metal bowl with an antenna sticking out the middle.

“It’s just a little booster for my wireless signal,” the robot replied matter-of-factly as he popped open part of his bracer and fished out a little wire. He connected the end into the base of the device and chewed on his lower lip for a few moments until a little green light turned on and the dish started to sway back and forth. “I’ve been having an issue reaching Tier Six, so I’m hoping that this can boost my signal strength.”

“Science,” Mireya spoke apathetically as she walked over and dropped into an uncushioned chair. She reached down and grabbed her glaive and a sharpening stone. As Proto Man fished through signals in his head, the half-night elf started to methodically sharpen her blade. “This is all the science I need,” she added to herself as she tuned out her companion to focus on her own prep work.

“Anyone there?” Proto Man asked aloud, his eyes scanning the list of servers and connections listed on his internal display. “I’m trying to hail the Community Center… can anyone hear me?”

He stopped talking as the booster continued to sway back and forth. It took close to three minutes, but he finally got a response. “Hey, Blues, is that you?”

“Elec Man?” Proto Man said as his system automatically fine-tuned his settings to optimize the call quality. “How have you been?”

“Ehh, we’ve been better, Blues.”

That wasn’t the answer that Proto Man had hoped to hear. “What’s the matter? The Empire?”

“It’s not that,” the other Robot Master interjected. “We may have… We may have lost our sister.”

Proto Man furrowed his brow. “What do you mean you lost her?” He asked, more confused than anything else. Roll didn’t seem like the type of individual to wander off into the streets of Tier Six and lose her way.

“We’ve pinned her location to the Dataverse, and while she’s still very much alive and okay, we can’t get in touch with her. None of us lack the capability to reach her, either…”

“But she’s okay? Can she reach you guys?”

“We know she’s okay and that she’s somewhere called File Island. That’s about it. We were trying to contact her, but that Dante Abyss thing sucked up all the bandwidth for the entire tier. I’m not sure how we’re able to have this conversation at all, since no one else in the facility can access the Dataverse.”

“Should I come back?” Proto Man asked, prompting Mireya to grunt and glance over at him. The android knew it was impossible, but he didn’t want to sound heartless.

“No,” Elec Man answered. “We all know you’re doing some good work in the Pale Moors, which is why we didn’t want to tell you about this.”

“That’s why I tried to get in touch with you guys… I’m not sure I can take care of this myself.”

“What do you mean?” Elec Man asked, sounded confused. “I figured that the town of Darkshire would be sending you out into the Moors at the head of an army or something. That Blight thing has been ravaging across two verses for a few years now.”

Proto Man chuckled. “Yea, you’d think that, but they’re too busy trying to hang one another. My friend and I are going to do this alone. I was hoping you guys had managed to get those teleporters up and running.”

There was silence on the other line for a few moments. “I mean, they’re mostly operational… You telling me you’re going to be deputizing us, Blues?” Elec Man snickered.

“Yes.” His older brother responded without a shadow of a doubt. “I’ll need all of you helping Mireya and I.”

“Oh, well I suppose we can manage that. It’s just a matter of making sure we can synch up the equipment here with your location. That may take some time and will require us to do a little extra-legal maneuvering around the data blackout. Give me about two days, and we should be able to lend a hand.”

“Got it,” Proto Man replied as he disconnected from the channel. He swiveled around and saw that Mireya was already outfitted with her weapons. “Ready to leave?”

“Forty-eight hours until the robotic cavalry arrives? I’ll make sure nothing is left when they get here,” she said with a grin.

Proto Man nodded his head. “Let’s hope you’re right. I need to work on some other things, so give me an hour or so.”

“I’ll go make sure our exit is clear,” the hybrid night elf replied as she slipped out into the darkness.

An hour later, Mireya was creeping back toward the small house when Proto Man slipped out through the door and let it gently shut behind him. “You ready?” She asked as she did a quick once-over of the robotic youth. He didn’t seem to be packing any additional weaponry, but he was wearing a necklace with a whistle at the end of it. The woman raised an eyebrow and gently flicked the little trinket.

“It’s a dog whistle,” Proto Man replied as they started toward their designated exit from Darkshire.