The Emperor's Jubilee II

[Proto Man]

He was the point man now, and given his past experience, he was actually more comfortable here than anywhere else. As Samus began the cumbersome process of summoning the vehicles, Proto Man checked the condition of his shield. The usually glossy white surface was marred by a few scorch marks, but it seemed like the structural integrity of the material had yet to be compromised. That was a nice sign, since he figured it would only get worse from here.

The next wave of robots weren’t as simple as the first one. Gone were the static, rigid machines that seemed to exist solely to wobble around and fire lasers. The adversaries marching across the makeshift arena were comparable to Robot Masters, with all the look and appearance of a person.

With a smile, Proto Man rushed forward as Nanoha and Raising Heart released a barrage of orbs above his head. The attack scattered a few of his targets, leaving the preteen with an opening to strike the first blow.

Kicking off the ground, his leap augmented by boosters built into his large boots, the Robot Master charged the Proto Buster and released the oversized burst at the nearest machine. While it looked stronger and more capable than the members of the first few waves, the humanoid machine’s alloy erupted all the same, as the plasma punched through its chest and exploded against the floor behind him. The kickback was enough to jostle the android midair, but it was nothing he hadn’t already calculated into his trajectory.

As he landed with a roll behind the first cluster of foes, Proto Man instinctively dropped to a knee and planted his shield into the white ground. A string of concentrated energy blasts slammed against his guard, jostling his small frame. When the volley abated, he put his gaze through the view slot and took a quick succession of shots. On the other side, a pair of well-placed bursts from Nanoha tore through the other side of the robot line, reducing all of them to twitching piles of twisted, scorched steel.

“Blues!”

Nanoha’s voice prompted the android to pivot his shield just in time to intercept the metal heel veering down at his skull. While the impact splintered the white surface, the block gave Proto Man the window he needed to blow apart the machine’s other knee.

Even as he rose to his feet, a look around revealed that more mechanical foes were rushing at their group from three of the four cardinal directions. With a scowl, Proto Man looked at the time and realized that barely a minute had passed since Samus had started the summoning process. This is going to be terrible.

Clenching his hands around the shield’s grip, Proto Man held out his arm cannon and activated the close quarters combat program. With a melodic hum, a two-foot sword of condensed plasma shot to life from the barrel of the Proto Buster. If he were alone in this situation, he would have met the charge of the enemy forces, but he knew he couldn’t risk getting too far away from Samus and Nanoha without compromising their safety or his. So Proto Man puffed out his small chest, kept his shield arm taut against his frame, and braced himself for the wave of approaching machines. A few yards behind him, Nanoha was at the ready, with Raising Heart already twirling above her head.

“Shoot Barrett!”

The android dropped down as the artillery strike screamed by over his head and slammed into the line of robots. Once the area above him was free of magical projectiles, Proto Man shoved off the ground and ran the short distance to meet the enemy. His sword lead the way—cleaving through the abdomen of the nearest machine as he twisted his upper body to bring his shield to bear against an oncoming fist.

Still bracing his shield to his left, Proto Man wrenched his sword from his initial targets gut and swung it hard to his right to cleave away the weapon-wielding arms of another foe. A beat later, a burst of energy slammed into his chest, staggering the red robot long enough for a quartet or enemy combatants to close in around him and lay into him with their fists and feet.

Proto Man managed to block or evade the first few strikes, but eventually the numbers game caught up to him and he found himself huddled on his knees and being bludgeoned into the ground by more limbs than he could count. After a few seconds, he figured it was the end, but then a pink flash tore through the crowded mob above him, taking advantaged of how clustered they’d become to blast apart a plethora of limbs and heads. More importantly than that, it caused the herd of machines to pause in their onslaught.

The pause and small amount of breathing room was all Proto Man needed to swing the energy sword around his small body in a complete circle. By the time he’d righted himself at the end of the swipe, the machines were already on their backs—their bodies all separated from their legs above their knees.

Rising up from his knees, Proto Man picked up his shield and turned to look over at his allies. From the look of it, Samus still had some time to go before she could finish summoning an escape. The sphere of omnilium was still slowly growing in front of the armored woman. The glance was all he could muster before there were lasers heading his way. Planting his shield in the ground, he huddled behind it as it soaked up another barrage. Unfortunately for the preteen android, the armor had been taxed to its limit already, and with a horrifying metal screech, a bolt got through the marred, fissured surface and punched through Proto Man’s shoulder.

With a grunt, the red robot squeezed his hand around the grip, more so to keep himself upright than to help with pain. Nanoha’s projectiles were already zipping through the sky, but it was clear from the pattern and the diminishing intensity of the spheres that the mage was also nearing the point where she would be unable to continue. Leaning onto his compromised shield, Proto Man started to fire away into the crowd of approaching machines. Despite a decreased lack of sensation in his shield arm, he still maintained the advantage of sheer firepower, although the horde of approaching robots seemed indifferent as members of their cohort collapsed and fell beneath their metal soles.

I need to upgrade this with some auto-fire… While each of his blasts took down one of the machines, his rate of fire was clearly doing very little to thin the crowd. Just keep at it, Samus still needs more time. The timer on his HUD indicated that they closing in on four minutes. A glimpse over his shoulder showed the armored woman still laboriously working on the same large orb of omnilium. What’s taking her so long, she ought to have at least one of those bikes by now.

Still leaning against his shield, Proto Man switched to firing charged bursts at the crowd. The delay between blasts gave them more time to close in on him, but each explosive attack cleared out a small section of the line and scattered those nearby. By the time they got within the radius of close quarters, they more akin to a mob than a horde. Rather than stand his ground and fight, the red robot rose to his feet and hurtled his shield at the center of the group. A few of the machines were knocked down by the impromptu projectile, which flashed all-white before fizzling into nonexistence.

Now that they saw their adversary without protection, the robots paused in their march and pointed their weapons at him. With a grimace, Proto Man retreated back to Nanoha, who was already channeling a different spell. As the preteen android stumbled over to her side, the mage’s spell flared to life, the circle beneath her glowing strong like a beacon in the dark.

“Wide Area Protection!”

The magenta sphere coalesced just as the volley of laser blasts would have torn into the trio. Nanoha maintained the spell for just a moment longer, allowing Proto Man to charge up another blast for when the barrier collapsed. As the spell faded, the red robot fired, destroying one of the machines and crippling a few huddled too close to the blast radius. Wasting little time, Proto Man leapt on the chest of a nearby foe and smashed its skull with the barrel of his gun arm. He then rode the broken machine to the ground as laser bolts pierced through the air where he’d been a moment prior.

Once back on the ground, Proto Man fired a string of shots into what remained of the crowd. Nanoha, undoubtedly trying to preserve her energy in the event that she was needed for more shields, took only a few choice shots that were able to down multiple foes.

Despite wounds and fatigue, the pair managed to clear out the mob of machines. As he stood up from the chest of the last one, the preteen android looked down at his form and noticed that he must have taken a few more blasts during that last skirmish. In a few places, the light armor of his body suit had been compromised and the organic layer below had been damaged. A quick hand to the top of his head revealed that his helmet was fractured as well. I just repaired all this stuff. If he had to continue in this combat role, Proto Man knew he’d have to do something about his shell. Either that or he’d need to carry around a few of those E tanks like his brother had done.

Nanoha’s voice broke the android away from his thoughts. “Looks like we have more…”

With a frown, Proto Man turned to see that there were more visitors dropping out of the air to greet them. The last wave had appeared to be an attempt to adjust and improve the spawned robots’ odds, and the same could be said of what was dropping down from the other side of the makeshift arena.

“Are those tanks?” The Robot Master asked rhetorically as the first of the armored vehicles landed, roared to life, and started in their direction. From an odds standpoint, it was only natural to go with something that had more survivability and firepower, so from a computer perspective, Proto Man had to respect whatever algorithm was being employed to create their opponents.

But from the perspective of someone trying not to get blown to pieces, the preteen hated their unseen adversary on numerous levels. “We can’t fight them like this…” he muttered as he turned to Samus.

The armored woman shuddered and stumbled backwards as the hardening sphere of omnilium faded to reveal a light utility vehicle. Although it lacked armor and weapons, there was room enough for all of them. “I figured this would be more efficient than three motorbikes.”

Proto Man opened his mouth to say something, but he was cut short when a shell erupted just a few yards in front of their position, tearing apart the white ground and spraying them with chunks of whatever material made up the floor.

“You two in back, I’ll drive,” Samus shouted as she jumped into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition. “Blues, you need to keep some fire on them to deter a chase... Nanoha, do you have enough in you to throw up some shields incase things get hairy?”

Yes, Raising Heart responded as its master hopped into the back seat of the open-air vehicle. The woman reached a hand down and helped Blues get into position next to her as Samus hit the gas.