Family of Steel - Man on Fire

[Proto Man]

The preteen slammed into the ground and didn’t stop until he crashed through a small rock embedded into the earth. With a grunt, he pushed himself up into a seated position and looked at the wounded cyborg lurching toward him. Even though half of his face had been burned away down to his metal-infused skull, Cell Delta grinned as he lifted his palm and started to charge an attack. Rather than lean back and die, Proto Man punched one fist into the soot and used it to brace himself as he leveled his buster arm with the oncoming man.

Without bothering to aim, the android pulled back on the nonexistent trigger, releasing a hail of automatic fire against his assailant. In lieu of the onslaught, the Soviet just kept marching toward his intended foe, even as the stream of pellets ate away at his exposed innards. Once he was close enough, Cell Delta retaliated with a blast that struck the android’s weapon arm. In a flash of red and orange, the Proto Buster exploded, spraying its wielder with superheated shrapnel.

A slew of red indicators flooded Proto Man’s HUD as the machine’s instincts took over. Reacting without delay, the android rolled backwards as Delta’s fist slammed into the ground where he’d sat a moment earlier. On his feet once again, the preteen looked down at the charred stump of his right hand and winced. Even if he’d wanted to, the blast had ruined the circuits that let him alter the function of the appendage.

“Can you feel that, Proto Man?” Cell Delta asked. The man’s voice was hoarse due to the damage suffered to his lungs and trachea. The cyborg looked like something out of a horror movie, with much of his thoracic cavity either blown away or melted into something that looked more like tar than organs or circuitry. “I can feel everything. You can’t imagine what it’s like to feel your heart slowly stop beating or feel one of your ribs blast off and tear clean a lung.”

“Were you always insane?” Proto Man rasped as he converted his remaining hand into a buster. “Or is this just the Omniverse?” The android glanced to his right and saw Heat Man’s still corpse lying there. Over the last few minutes, a thin layer of soot had already settled onto the body.

“The Omniverse made me immortal,” the Soviet said with another sinister grin. “How am I not supposed to love every second of this? In my world, I came back from the verge of death fourteen times in the course of ten years of warfare. Now I never have to face that again. The question remains…are you ready to die?”

Before Proto Man could utter a response, Heat Man lurched up into a seat position and threw out his gun arm, releasing a concentrated stream of fire that caught Cell Delta square on the chest and face. The cyborg let out a roar of pain as his mangled form turned into a walking inferno. By the time the stout android let up on his attack, their adversary had already fled into the ash clouds.

Seems like he wasn’t ready to die.

Proto Man turned and stumbled over to Heat Man, who still had his smoldering hand cannon pointed in the direction of their foe. “D-d-did I get him?” The other machine asked.

“Yes, he won’t be coming back anytime soon,” the red android replied, placing a hand on the shoulder of the other Robot Master.

“He’s true about the immortality,” Heat Man muttered, his voice barely a whisper. “You need to get stronger if you’ll want to be able to deal with him.”

“How?”

“Take my power,” the other android spoke softly.

“I don’t understand,” Proto Man said.

“Your brother took it from our broken corpses, but for you, I’ll gladly go willingly.” Heat Man poked at the fluid-stained hole in his chest. With a grunt, the smaller android rose to his feet, denying assistance when his half-brother tried to offer an arm. “Tell my brothers I gave it my all and died on my feet.”

Before Proto Man could protest, Heat Man’s eyes rolled up into his head. The fire-themed android’s knees quavered once… twice… and then erupted outward in a flash of white light.

A gasp escaped the red robot’s mouth as he turned away from a blast that gave off no force or heat. When he looked back, he saw that he was being rotated by a handful of spheres that seemed to glitter with all the colors of the rainbow. The orbs swirled around Proto Man like tiny moons for a few moments before they suddenly and rapidly spiraled in on him until they vanished harmlessly into his chest.

A popup appeared on the machine’s HUD as his body suit turned a darker shade of gray and his armored pieces shifted to an orange hue. Focusing on the message, Proto Man smiled as he lifted up his remaining weapon hand. Inside the barrel of the weapon, tiny flames danced around—primed and readied to incinerate his foes.

The message continued to flicker on his screen as Proto Man limped his way toward the Gate.

‘-H- Get Equipped with Atomic Fire!’