Memory Bank

[Proto Man]

Accessing memory banks...Date: 3 mo. BOV ... Location: Monsteropolis, NY...

Loading file 'Wily no Saigo!' ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Engage.

The red figure stumbled and clutched at his chest.

Power…. Failing.  Recommend immediate cessation of expenditure.  The words flashed on the android’s internal display and were accompanied by a few flickering warning signs.
 
“God… darn it!”
 
With a grunt, Proto Man fell to his knees.  Clutching a gloved hand to his chest, the android sucked air into lungs that didn’t exist.  Even though he wasn’t a human, sweat stained his temples and made the hair inside his helmet awkwardly moist.  Twenty feet in front of him, another robot watched with a grin as his opponent huffed and heaved on the ground.
 
“Just lie down, Proto Man; you can’t hope to defeat me.”  Although the other Robot Master lacked the finer intonation and speech patterns of his more advanced ilk, he was not without his fare share of evil bantering capabilities.
 
“You’re not intimidating, Drawl Man.”  With a grin, Proto Man firmly planted a red, metal boot on the ground in front of him.  A beat later, he clenched his synthetic teeth together and rose up to his feet.  Extending a hand, the prototype android clenched his fist, and all of a sudden—
 
—nothing happened.  A message popped up in the corner of the robot’s field of vision that spelled out the situation in rigid, unsympathetic red letters.  Power levels critical.  Proto Buster inaccessible.  Lowering his hand, Proto Man watched as Drawl Man threw a hand out to his side like a diva.  The next moment, the metal fingers closed around the high-tech revolver on the cowboy Robot Master’s belt.
 
“Dr. Wily is going to be so pleased when I bring your body to him.”  Drawl Man’s mouth twitched, which meant he was trying to smile but lacked the necessary level of sophistication.  Many of Wily’s Robot Masters were designed with the sole purpose to destroy things and bring and end to all living things, particularly Dr. Light and his cronies.  As a result, they all had limited vocabularies and usually plastic expressions.  There were always exceptions, like the morose Bubble Man and the overly egotistical Top Man.
 
Unfortunately, Drawl Man needed neither high-level sentience nor elaborate facial nerves to beat down Proto Man.  The cowboy-themed android had simply managed to pounce on his opponent when he was down.  As the very first ‘Robot Master,’ Proto Man was not without his flaws.  Dr. Light hadn’t perfect the hybrid nuclear-solar power cores that served to fuel his machines, but he rushed to production so Wily didn’t take all the glory.  The two men, who were partners at the time, were constantly embattled with one another for the bragging rights to their inventions. 
 
From what he’d been told, Proto Man had once been closer to Drawl Man.  In those first few weeks—before the fault had happened—he’d been the obedient, cordial machine that both men had hoped to create.
 
The incomplete and untested core that went into Proto Man wound up being stable.  There were times when the fluctuations of energy were almost too painful to bear, and in the end, the casing splintered.  Proto Man knew that he could trace his real existence to that moment when the power core corrupted Wily’s programming and unlocked something in the prototype’s CPU beyond the scope of science.
 
He’d been trapped in that lab and left to his own devices.  Despite being brilliant, the two doctors didn’t really understand what they’d created.  They left the robot alone and confused.  Who could you talk to when you were the only one of you kind?  The closest thing to Proto Man before the creation of the extensive line of Robot Masters had been the computer AI that operated the Mettaurs.  While beyond anything else in existence, the Mettaurs were as close to sentience as a few circuits and chipsets could be.
 
So Proto Man ran away the first chance he got.  He kept running and running until his paint started to peel and his boots began to rust.  He wasn’t sure how many years passed, but he eventually found himself back on the outskirts of Monsteropolis.  In some cruel irony, his strength finally failed him as he wandered down the old country road into town.
 
It was then that Dr. Wily found him and promised him the gift of a life without an expiration date.  The scientist fixed the glaring design flaws but refused to correct all the outdated problems unless Proto Man helped him get revenge on Dr. Light.  And while the prototype couldn’t stand Light, he wasn’t the type to commit patricide.  In an attempt to casually depart from Dr. Wily’s headquarters, he’d been overwhelmed by an assortment of the man’s robotic creatures.
 
“Come on, now, Drawl Man, we can talk this out.”  With an attempted smile, the cowboy drew his revolver and put a round of energy through Proto Man’s chest.  The concentrated round shattered the prototype’s chest armor and exploded out through the other side.  Tiny bolts of electricity danced out from the small hole as a slew of warnings began to pile up on Proto Man’s display.  Before the robot could read the first one, the screen went black and all of his functions stopped.