Façades

[Proto Man]

Two months later...

The gates of Darkshire loomed on the horizon.

By now, it was only Proto Man and Mireya who remained. The Prototype Robot Master’s siblings had all returned to Coruscant a half day prior. While everyone was a lot more banged up and bruised on the way back, the larger group made the journey much more bearable. Despite their hardships, they all found a way to celebrate, knowing that they had finally stopped a great evil from spreading across any more parts of the Omniverse. Now all that remained was to ensure that the people of Darkshire were able to breath a little easier at night, even if the Moors were still host to thousands of hideous monsters.

“Who goes there?” A voice cried from the gatehouse.

“I am Proto Man, and this is Mireya Vasquez of the Tangled Green. We come bearing news from the Black Gate.” The preteen machine shouted.

A long silence came from the gatehouse, causing the red robot to smirk. How long had it been since they had heard someone mention that sinister structure?

With a series of groans, the heavy gate retracted up into the stone. As it did, a group of armed soldiers flooded out to greet--or was it to confront?--the pair. From the middle, a man with short hair and customized armor strode out to address the pair. “The name’s Dmitri. I’m one of the people in charge of the guardsmen here. I don’t believe I’ve met either of you,” he spoke as he reached a hand out.

“I’m Blues,” Proto Man said as he reached out and shook the man’s gloved hand. After Mireya introduced herself, the preteen machine asked the obvious question. “Where’s Dobson? Isn’t he in charge of the guard?”

Dmitri nodded his head. “He is, but he’s currently dealing with some issues at Town Hall, so you’ll have to wait to speak with him. In the meantime, I’m taking up some of his duties.”

It was then that Proto Man remembered the situation in Darkshire before his departure to deal with the Archdemon. There had been whispers of turmoil originating from the Town Hall, and from the look of things, the situation remained unresolved. “We bring good news,” the machine said, hoping that perhaps he could offer a silver lining.

“The runner mentioned the Black Gate… have you been out to there?” The two Blight-slayers nodded their heads. “What do you have to report?”

“We went out there and banished the prime responsible for spreading the Blight, the disease that turns people and animals into darkspawn.” As she spoke, Mireya reached out and handed Dmitri a leather sack. The man accepted the bag and pulled it open before retrieving its contents. The first thing he found was a shard of the black material that made up the arches for the Black Gate. The pair had taken several pieces to serve as proof of their journey. Along with the stone shard, they had taken several assorted pieces of armor and weapons from the darkspawn that Mireya and the Generation 1 Robot Masters had defeated. Everything they had taken bore the emblem of Scylla, which was intended as proof that they had found her stronghold.

“We have no corpse to bring back to show you, so we hope that this is enough to prove that our word is true,” Mireya explained as Dmitri examined the artifacts and handed them off to some of his retainers.

“You seem like decent people,” Dmitri replied as he crossed his arms over his chest. “If what you say is true, you’ve done a great thing for this town. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything to offer either of you… the situation here in Darkshire is very fragile. We’ve lost some of our best champions in the last few months.”

The fact that the man said nothing of what was happening behind closed doors did not make Proto Man feel any better. Part of the robot regretted the words even as they left his mouth, but he knew it was the right thing to say. “Can we do anything to help?” Next to the preteen machine, he heard Mireya groan beneath her breath, but if she disagreed, she said nothing. A few days ago, they had mentioned heading to the Tangled Green, but Proto Man wasn’t one to look away from a place in need of help.

“Yes,” Dmitri replied as a smile spread across his stubble-covered visage. “We need extra hands on the walls. We’ve had a few more attacks in the last couple of weeks, and the additional firepower would really help us out as we try to sort through the staffing issues.”

As he noticed Mireya opening her mouth in the corner of his eye, Proto Man took a step forward and reached his hand toward the man. “We accept. We can’t stay too long here, but we have some time.”

The guardsman smirked and shook hands with preteen machine. “Report to Tower Six. It’s near the northern side of town. You’ll find Sergeant Thrash there, and he’ll have instructions for you, okay?”

“Great!” Proto Man replied as he grabbed hold of Mireya’s wrist and half-dragged her through the city gate of Darkshire.

Once they were within earshot of the group of armored militiamen, Mireya gave Proto Man a gentle smack on the back of his helmeted skull. “Why’d you volunteer to spend more time here? This place is miserable.”

The robot rolled his eyes behind his visor. “The only reason we are here in the first place is to help people. What is a few more days of our time?”


Mireya laughed and shook her head. “Sound like famous last words, if you ask me. In that time, this place could go up in flames.”

Proto Man flexed an arm, even though the limb was sore and in need of maintenance. “Then we’ll put it out,” he muttered as they made their way toward the guard tower.