A Home for Heroes

[Proto Man]

The staff members of the Gold Cross were certain their lives were over the moment the explosions started, but when a violent wave of concussive death didn’t instantly envelop them, they found themselves blinking against the dust and smoke. As the fallout settled, the guardsman who had moments early verbally chewed out Proto Man found himself staring up at the preteen machine. Fully empowered and brandishing a massive shield, the robot had made himself seem massive, and through some means, he’d protected the half dozen people behind him from the brunt of the explosions.

With a wheeze, Proto Man dropped the shield and fell to an ankle as his physique shrank down to his normal proportions. Although he could hear chatter from the people behind him, the android’s eyes were glued to the gruesome ditch that had once been the line of marauders. After the series of explosions, there was only a shallow trench dotted with charred viscera. While he’d managed to save the people in his immediate vicinity, there were others who had been nearby and caught parts of the explosion.

Turning to face the group he’d protected, Proto Man pointed to a few people lying on their sides near the edge of the square. “Start with those people over there, and we’ll work our way around. We need to help the injured…” Some of the volunteers were still a little shell shocked, but there were lives at stake. “Come on!” Proto Man shouted as he stumbled forward, grabbed the nearest person, and hoisted them up from the ground.

Within a half hour, the ruins at the West Gate had been turned into a makeshift collection of tents to care for the wounded. For his part, the preteen machine spent all that time and then most of the afternoon making sure everyone received the attention they needed. Once he was certain that the wounded were stabilized, he set about repairing the wall with some freshly summoned blocks of sandstone.

“It should hold,” the red robot remarked once the new segment of the wall was in place.

“Thank you,” the guardsman replied as he wiped some sweat from his forehead. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“Of course I did,” Proto Man shot back. “It was the right thing to do.”

Before the conversation could get any more sentimental, the machine bid farewell to the guards and the volunteers and slipped back into the streets of Nippur. With some luck, his work with the Gold Cross would make him less of a persona non grata within the ailing desert town.

While that was one reason to celebrate, Proto Man couldn’t avoid the reality that he had zero idea where Mickey had gone in the interim. Despite the hectic events of the day, the preteen machine feared that the wackiness of ‘time’ in the Omniverse may have put more of a gulf between the two friends. Was it possible that Mickey had already gone through weeks of some other turmoil? Maybe he wasn’t even in Nippur anymore?

So after spending the remainder of the afternoon scouring the Dataverse and the places they’d traveled days prior, Proto Man set his sights on the Nexus. At this point, he couldn’t even get in touch with Mireya, which left him more concerned. The feisty half-night elf had a habit for getting herself into violent situations when she was crowded in by people. Fortunately, there were no accounts of street brawls in Nippur, so the android peacefully exited the main gate. Unlike a few days earlier, he left the city as Proto Man and made no effort to mask his identity. He had donned his scarf and helmet, and he strode proudly the entire time.

Nippur would endure… or it would collapse into the sands. For the moment, Proto Man knew he had left the place just a little better than when he’d arrived with Mickey and Mireya earlier in the week. He wasn’t sure if he’d be back sooner or later, but he doubted that this was the final time he would visit the sandstone city.