Day 4 Evening

[Proto Man]

Pre-Challenge

They had barely started to meet Link when the mob had descended upon them. In a swirl of lights, colors, and shockingly melodic noises, the foursome had withstood the onslaught of the metal monster Kopaka and his collection of cronies. The ‘toa’ creature had even been felled at the hands of Link, ensuring that the machine wouldn’t continue to stalk them through the forest.

A beam of light punched through the chaos, and Proto Man got to watch as the redhead lurched backwards, her eyes lolling back in her skull. Whatever had struck her must have stopped or stalled her heart, because she crumbled like a house of cards. The machine’s eyes went wide as he tapped into the remaining fragments of his waning power. It was enough—barely—to summon the Mega Bomb.

The red robot hadn’t flinched as he pointed at the crowd. In a brilliant flash of red and yellow, the forest had ceased to be. In its place, a smoldering clearing lined with the scorched, twisted remnants of oak trees.

From the smoke, a limping Mickey emerged. The frantic mouse was limping as he tried to support more weight than his small frame could carry. Over one of his shoulders was the motionless shape of Belle. Blood drenched that entire side of the king’s body, and Proto Man couldn’t tell if it belonged to the mouse or the woman.

Mickey’s mouth opened up, but there were no audible words that came out of it. Everything seemed to be dulled out but the thrum of blood in the machine’s head. Perhaps seeing the robot’s paralysis, Link shambled forward, his hands reaching for the trinkets that the mouse was half-dragging on the ground. In the process, the Hylian accidentally clipped Proto Man, which was enough to shake the machine from his stupor.

Stumbling forward himself, the android moved to the mouse’s side and put a shoulder under Belle’s limp body. With the world around them in flames both physically and metaphorically, the twosome retreated through the wall of burning trees. Behind them, the armored Hylian covered their withdrawal, his eyes scanning the clearing for signs of their adversaries as he clenched onto the pink crowbar as if it was the last weapon in the world.

The pair made it nearly five minutes before they collapsed underneath the weight of the young woman.

Both crashed to the ground, and while both were bloody and battered, their own injuries were the least of their concerns. A few feet away, Link had already dropped their equipment and was moving to scan their surroundings.

Mickey was the first to stir—his bloodstained gloves clutching onto Belle’s shoulders as he gently shook the girl. “Belle?” He asked in a desperate voice only a little louder than a whisper. “Belle...” More shakes. Tears started to well up in the corners of the mouse’s eyes. “Come on, get up…” Shoulders shook with a gentle ferocity, but all they achieved was ruffling Belle’s blood-matted hair. “Belle, we gotta go!”

A hand reached out for Mickey’s shoulder. The mouse turned and saw that his armored companion had shed his metal helmet. The blue eyes that met his gaze were wet with tears, but even though he opened his mouth to speak, Proto Man found no words. He simply shook his head, and with that, floodgates opened on both ends. Wails escaped the primes as they collapsed into each other, their sobs melding into one heartbroken chorus as the young man in the green tunic stared in silence and held back his own sadness.

He’d only known them a short while, and before that, they’d been opponents on a few occasions. Even so, it’d been so long since Link had seen such genuine grief and the love from which it had taken root. After days of traveling with unsavory elements, the hylian had welcomed what seemed to be kind hearts—the girl who now lay dead had even called him the greatest hero she’d ever known.

Before he wound up succumbing to the air of sadness, the warrior remembered a game-changing fact.

“Hey!” Link shouted as his eyes light up just a little. Despite his exuberance, the pair was lost in their sadness. “Hey, listen!” The young man added as he stepped forward and dropped to a knee next to the two child-sized primes. At the sound of his voice next to them, the two turned to look at him with bloodshot eyes stained wet with grief. “The fight against the purple-haired man… that device you gained.”

“What?” Mickey muttered as he removed a glove and started to wipe his eyes. Before he received an answer from their blonde ally, Proto Man let out a gasp and turned to look at one of their bags. Like a wild animal, the machine tore into the sack and pulled out the small metal box. When the mouse saw the red metal and the white cross, he realized what they had at their disposal and allowed the faint traces of a smile to flash upon his weary visage. “Can you use it?”

Proto Man had already torn open the box before he bothered to answer. Although he wasn’t an expert, there were instructions and an image on the inside of the cover. The preteen machine turned on the machine and started to twist some dials. “I… I can do this,” he replied between sniffles. He scooped up a pair of squares and looked down at Belle. “We, uh… we need to pull her shirt off.”

A shade of red spread across Mickey’s nose and cheeks as he looked down at the body. “B-bu—a”

“Tear the shirt off!” Proto Man shouted, conveying more desperation than anger as he plugged a pair of paddles into the machine. Lights appeared on a screen as it started to hum. “We don’t have the time for modesty!”

Without another thought, Mickey grabbed and yanked, his hand tearing away the woman’s blouse. A momentary revulsion shuddered down the mouse’s spine at the thought, but before he could dwell in that, Proto Man nudged him out of the way. Although he had an expression that betrayed his lack of confidence, the android nevertheless rubbed the two paddles together as the noise from the device built up to crescendo. The preteen machine grit his teeth as he pressed the paddles onto Belle’s chest and side.

A beat later, there was a audible bbbzzzrtt as the enormous dosage of electricity flooded into the woman’s corpse. There was so much energy in the burst that it jolted Belle’s chest up off the ground, but despite the theatrics, the woman’s arched body once again went limp against the grass.

“What happened?” Mickey asked as his eyes once more grew wide.

“More juice,” Proto Man replied as he twisted a dial on the AED. After a few moments, the machine started to buzz once more. “Clear!” The robot screamed as he smacked the paddles down against his fallen friend.

Proto Man never knew that a scream could sound so beautiful, but when the woman’s eyes shot open and her mouth fell open in a bloodcurdling shout, the two tiny primes both breathed out enormous sighs of relief.

“It’s…” Belle stammered before a fit of pain caused her entire body to cringe for a few moments. “It’s,” she added prior to a gulp of air. “It’s a porno mag, Mickey.”

“It sure is!” Mickey shouted as he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around the wide-eyed woman. With his arms around the redhead, the mouse started to smile and laugh, but before Belle could even begin to process what was going on, a second set of arms closed around her from the other side. Stress and terror melted off the shoulders of both tiny primes as they started to laugh like maniacs. From the middle of them, a half-conscious Belle just smiled as Link watched on with his own amused expression.

Warlock 600

This was how Proto Man had hoped this excursion would have gone: A group of champions standing against a clear force of evil. The surviving champions—hardened by five days on the island dealing with nature, monsters, and treachery—charged the Warlock from all angles.

Even though they had just come from another near-brush with death, there had been no dissension in the trio when they were summoned before the Warlock. Not a single one opted to retreat from the conflict, despite a variety of nagging injuries.

As the other more enthusiastic individuals charged forward, Proto Man found himself moving a little slower. For the first time since their initial run-in with Kopaka, the machine was once more starting to feel doubts creep back into his head. He knew that the last fights had drained whatever fleeting strength he had retained prior to arriving on the island. That last shield had been the end of it—the last vestige of the Proto Man.

So what did that leave him with now, at the end of this long and horrible road?

The machine looked down at the chain clutched in his hands. While a chain in and of itself would have been a nice weapon, this one had large, hooked swords attached to each end. Those blades were etched with runes and stained with the blood of the last person to hold the weapon—Victor Wolfe. That particular villain, who’d betrayed a stranger in the Syntech competition, had met his end at Link’s hand. Without a second thought, the hylian had slain the assassin.

And he’s the greatest hero of all time, apparently.

Up ahead, the scene had become one of utter chaos as the warlock battled back against nearly a dozen primes. At the head of the group, Belle fought with the same grit and tenacity as she always had, and despite the fact that nearly everyone in the room had at one point tried to kill someone else, they were a unified front. There was no accidental crossfire to be had, and many former foes were even combining their efforts against the villain.

“Blues?” Mickey had pulled away from the fracas as a fireball exploded in the air, momentarily consuming the Warlock. “You okay?”

“Y-yea,” Proto Man said with a nod as he took hold of the two swords. “Just… just lost in my thoughts for a moment there.”

“The bad guy isn’t going to beat himself,” the mouse shouted as the machine rushed into the fray. With smiles, the twosome spun and made their way forward as a scorched Warlock dropped to the ground and discharged a blast of electricity from a gnarled palm. Mickey clenched his jaw and rushed forward to intercept the attack with the Shield of Perseus. As the energy danced and skittered across the metal surface, those primes with ranged weapons moved to the sides and attacked.

Trying to focus on crushing the mouse, the Warlock was blindsided when the bullwhip crashed across his face. A beat later, a quick succession of bat-shaped projectiles crashed against his chest.

“Insolent creatures! It’s no use!” A beleaguered Warlock screamed before an assault rifle-propelled grenade exploded a few feet from his face.

On his end, the fel wizard saw only stars and smoke. He clutched a hand against his eyes as he tried to will the ringing in his ears to stop. As the Warlock tried to shift his focus back to the champions, the cloud of smog kicked up by the grenade was parted by a tiny red prime armed with a pair of swords.