[Exemplary] Family of Steel - Carved from the Blighted Oak

[Proto Man]

The damage he’d sustained in the struggle with Cell Delta had severely damaged several of Proto Man’s systems.  Chief among the inoperable functions and applications was the mapping and GPS program.  Those injuries, plus the various surface abrasions and a dead hand, meant that the android quickly became lost as he tried to navigate through the soot-stained landscape.  To make the situation more difficult, his right hip joint had been fractured in the battle, which reduced his mobility to a glorified limp.  

Even so, Proto Man pressed on, feeling somewhat comforted in the notion that he wouldn’t have to hunt down fifteen rogue Robot Masters.   Was it possible that they’d all be like Heat Man?  At the thought of the dead machine, the preteen looked down at the Proto Buster, which still stood primed and ready to immolate anything that tried to stall his retreat.  

Every now and again, a volcano would erupt and flood the entire area in darkness and ash.  Each time, Proto Man fought an urge to go investigate the after-effects and make notes about the environment inside and outside of the volcano.  Although he’d never been so interested in volcanos before, the preteen android fought the urges and didn’t bother to overthink them as he continued to head in what he thought was south.

Given the fact that his clock and wifi were also malfunctioning, Proto Man had no idea how long he half-walked, half-shambled across the Ashen Plains.  By the time he saw the gate on the horizon, most of his body was caked over with dirt and soot.  Lifting his functioning hand to his eyes, Proto Man lifted his sunglasses up from his eyes long enough to verify that he wasn’t seeing a distortion.

It’s a gate… but it doesn’t look the same.  Shrugging off the urge to analysis the inter-verse gateway, the prototype Robot Master slowly walked the rest of the way over to the doorway and slipped through.

On the other side, Proto Man found himself standing in a clearing atop a small hill.  All in front of him, the hill slopped down and was swallowed by a dense jungle.  From the foreboding silence of the Ashen Plains, the preteen now found himself assailed by a cacophony of noise, ranging from screeching bugs and cawing birds to the roar of a nearby river.

“This… this isn’t where I started,” Proto Man muttered as he looked up into the sky.  The black and gray clouds were gone, and in their place, the sky was a pleasant shade of blue.  “Oh well,” the android added as he began to limp down the hill into the jungle.

From a few yards away, a synthetic creature watched the prototype.  The metal snake had a vastly oversized head with big red eyes that glowed faintly as it observed the other machine.

[Proto Man]

When had his communications come back online?

Proto Man glanced down at his arms and noticed that the visible internal damage didn’t seem to be quite as devastating as it had been earlier. Even stranger, he was missing many smaller scratches and abrasions from his armor and body suit. Was it possible that the damage was undoing itself? Proto Man had never been this seriously injured, even while fighting the dragon in Camelot, so he had zero precedent. Either way, a check of his systems revealed increased functionality and smoother operations across the board.

Is this a natural thing for primes? Proto Man flashed back to Cell Delta’s ramblings about immortality. Was the heavily burned and mutilated cyborg hidden away in a cave somewhere in the Ashen Plains undergoing the same gradual restoration? The small machine shuddered at the thought of the maniac being restored back to full health. With a jarring ping, Proto Man’s GPS software started back up, and after it synced up to the Dataverse, it began downloading a few days worth of information.

Samus was right, he’d wound up in the Tangled Green after his trek away from Cell Delta. Unfortunately for the preteen android, he wouldn’t have a functioning map of the area for several hours, thanks in part to the various patches and updates his software would have to make. How long had he walked before arriving in this place? Days? Weeks?

Shambling forward, Proto Man found himself in a small clearing in the forest. A quick analysis revealed that someone had manually removed enough trees to lighten up the space, as a few stumps were still present. The android walked over to one of the stumps and took a firm look at it, hoping it would yield more information. As many of his systems were still offline or functioning poorly, all Proto Man could do was guess as to how long ago the tree had been removed.

In the distance, something howled—an angry, animal sound.

[Proto Man]

His brothers were slipping through his fingers. Over the last few months, he’d gradually lost contact with half of his siblings, and try as he could, Quick Man didn’t trust anyone to oversee the operations in Coruscant in his absence. The only solace he had was that the Empire had stopped searching for the Gen 2s after reports started filtering in that they had been separately spotted in various verses.

The last report from Heat Man had been nearly a month ago. Unlike many of his brothers, the shorter Robot Master was never one to miss a chance to send a transmission rambling around volcanism or seismology or some other bit of geological nonsense. On top of Heat Man’s silence, the prime had failed to return as well.

Fortunately, only one of those facts caused Quick Man any grief, and it wasn’t that he didn’t have that sociopath watching his ever move. Even so, the absences were disheartening on a personal and a professional level, as they were behind on all of their timetables.

“Where are you all?” Quick Man muttered as he pushed his chair over to another terminal and stared at the small icon. It was the last conversation and transmission from Wood Man, and the timestamp listed a date that was now two months in the past. With a frown, the red-and-black machine clicked the icon to replay the footage.

There was a burst of static, and then the frantic visage of Wood Man filled the screen. He started to talk without following any of the usual protocols. “The trees here...they’re all wrong,” Wood Man whispered as he glanced to his flanks before looking back at the hologram of his brother.

“What do you mean ‘wrong’? I thought you were instructed not to research anything passed the mission parameters, Wood Man? Your coordinates are all wrong. What are you doing?” Quick Man’s disembodied voice asked. The present-day Quick Man frowned and felt some shame at how angry he had sounded at the time. The wood-based machine paid his brother’s tone no heed. Wood Man was too busy running his hands through hair that didn’t exist. There was clearly something wrong with the android, but at the time, Quick Man had been too irritated with the situation in general to care.

“Don’t get me wrong… I-I found dozens of amazing ecosystems here. A-a-as I mentioned, the night elves and the ninjas exist in perfect harmony with the environment.”

“Yes, I recall the images and video you sent us about their giant tree.”

“I was tracking some elves the previous week, and I followed a scouting party into a part of the Green I hadn’t visited yet. Everything was… wrong. Black and moldy soil that seemed to fester and ooze. The trees that weren’t dead were twisted and coated in this living filth. All black, gray, and red… It was like a disease or a fungus that was growing unchecked. But the host plants weren’t dying. It was more like they had been transformed from a cellular level into something else entirely.”

“Is that bad?”

“It’s the fauna as well!” Wood Man shouted before pausing to scrape at himself. “They’re also infected by the same disease, and it has turned them into these hulking, half-alive monsters. Those elves that I trailed? They were ambushed by a pack of these mutant, black-skinned creatures with pointed ears and dressed in the remains of elven armor.”

“So it’s some kind of infectious, cross-species disease?”

“That warps and mutates the afflicted!” Wood Man rasped, his eyes erratically glancing around the still-empty clearing. “I hid in the bushes and watched one of the elves writhe and scream as her life slowly left her. I watched the pestilence spread across her corpse and turn her lithe, beautiful form into a twisted mockery of its original design…and then she--it--stood back up.”

“You need to leave that area and return home, Wood Man. There are too many variables with which to contend. Just pack up and return to the factory.” Present-day Quick Man was frowning, much as he had when he’d last spoke with his brother. The frown he wore now was directed more at himself for his lack of empathy.

“I can’t!” Wood Man screamed, causing Quick Man to wince.

“Why?”

“Because my curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to examine one of the dead elves up close, and it got up and assaulted me. I managed to knock it down and escape, but it’s attacks cut deep…”

“You believe that it somehow infected you? You are a machine.”

“I know!” Wood Man screamed as he twisted his body to reveal a nasty scar on his right leg, beneath the knee. While his ‘skin’ had been crudely sutured, twitching black veins fissured out from the initial injury.

“Have you internal systems been compromised?”

“No.”

“Have you tried to physically remove the infection?”

“I tried. It just regrew...I feel like it is just biding its time until it can adapt enough to infect my coding!”

“There is nothing like that in the world, Wood Man!”

“We’re not in the real world anymore, Quick Man! Or did you forget the part where we all died?”

“Calm down. I will dispatch some of Sniper Joes to come retrieve you.”

“Send no one! It’s too dangerous!” With that, Wood Man smashed the projector, killing the transmission and leaving Quick Man with a sea of white noise.

Leaning forward, Quick Man closed the video file. He had managed to send about two dozen Sniper Joes to the Tangled Green, but their communications back to him had ceased a few weeks ago. If the boomerang-themed robot had learned anything over the last year, it was the fact that the Omniverse was far more dangerous than anyone could imagine.

For the first time in a long time, Quick Man felt the closest thing to loneliness that a robot could feel.

[Proto Man]

The preteen android paused and looked down at his maimed appendage. He’d stopped limping recently, but his wounded hand was still nonfunctioning. Despite the continued setback, he now had a purpose--he’d picked up on a wireless transmission somewhere close. Whoever it was,they wanted to be found, and better yet, Proto Man recognized the coding on the signal. All the Robot Masters used similar encoding methods when they relayed transmissions through public channels.

After nearly another half hour, Proto Man came to a nondescript tree. Based on his readings, the wireless signal was coming from somewhere inside the tree. Furrowing his brow behind his sunglasses, the preteen walked up and placed his good hand on the bark. He then proceeded to drag his fingers around the circumference of the tree until they bumped against something that certainly wasn’t wood.

Hinges… Proto Man thought to himself as he found a finger-sized groove in the bark’s surface and pulled open the hatch to reveal a tiny container filled with a seemingly nondescript device that looked like little more than a large hockey puck with a glass top. The red robot recognized the tiny apparatus for what it really was--a communication device designed by Doctors Light and Wily. The little machine allowed for two-way communication via holograms, and it could also be used to record and store video like a very high tech diary.

With a smile, Proto Man collected the device from the tree and closed the hatch. As he turned it over in his hands to examine it, he noticed a piece of paper folded into a neat square and taped to the bottom. Dropping down to his haunches, the machine placed the puck upside down and gently removed the note. Using his teeth and his one good hand, he gingerly unfolded it, trying his hardest not to drool all over it. Once he was finished, he removed it from his mouth and read the scraggly, half-legible words beneath his breath.

“Tell my brothers I love them, and I am so sorry that I wasn’t strong enough.”

[Proto Man]

Proto Man frowned and set the note down on the ground between his legs. His attention now turned to the puck. Just as he’d expected, it had just the basic layer of encryption, and any Robot Master would have been able to unlock it within ten seconds. I wonder if this was left for anyone in particular. The preteen glanced back to the note as he accessed the files on the device. There were only three—a video file, a massive document, and a very recognizable piece of software designed by Dr. Wily. Ignoring the .exe for the moment, Proto Man opened the video and set the puck on top of the note.

The lens on the top of the handheld device flickered a few times before finally projecting a holographic image of a Robot Master. While the projection had been scaled down to twenty-five percent, Proto Man could easily recognize the individual who had recorded the file. Only one android designed by the good doctors had bark in lieu of armor plates. Despite the fact that the underlying material was reinforced ceramic titanium, the wooden shell gave the robot not only his name but also made him truly unique.

“H-hello,” the projection of Wood Man said with a smile as he squatted down to fiddle with something Proto Man couldn’t see. “My name is Wood Man and my serial number is DWN-016. I am a Robot Master designed by Doctor Albert Wily. My seven brothers and I arrived in this universe together following our death at the hands of DLN-001. In many ways, it was fortunate, because we’ve all been allowed to think on our own with only our own orders to follow.

“My brothers and I have all been analyzing and cataloging the various aspects of the Omniverse since our arrival in Coruscant nearly a year ago. I’m pretty confident that Quick Man and Metal Man are planning something against the men that run Coruscant, but I’m not too worried. I think they’re both just afraid because the only thing they’ve ever really known is trying to hurt people.

“Anyway, I’m in the Tangled Green, because I’m… you know, Wood Man. While Dr. Wily made my primary protocol the destruction of Mega Man, he also programmed me with enough botanical knowledge to bowl over a room of PhDs. And you may laugh at me for being so predictable, but I do genuinely like plants. There’s just something about watching them grow that I find fascinating, so you can bet I wasn’t going to pass up on the chance to explore an entire world dedicated to forests and jungles!”

Proto Man couldn’t help but smile at the other Robot Master’s almost childlike enthusiasm. For the second time, he’d been proven wrong about one of Dr. Wily’s androids. Unfortunately, he also inadvertently thought back to Heat Man’s sacrifice and started to fear what had become of Wood Man if the Robot Master had authored the note on the puck.

“Anyway, I just got here about a week ago, and I’m already pretty excited with my initial findings. I’ve decided to start recording my findings and some videos onto these data pucks, because I feel like I’m going to wind up having a lot of information to sort through when I return home. But I think I’ve wasted enough time for now… Wood Man signing out. Have a nice day.” With a bow, the hologram fizzled out, signaling the end of video.

A quick glance at the document revealed nearly sixteen pages of Wood Man’s manic notations about various plant and animal species he’d encountered within a few hectares. There was a map included, with the area outlined in black, but Proto Man still had a few hours to go before he had his own diagram of the Tangled Green. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so the preteen closed the file and opened up the software.

The executable file was another example of Wily’s programming skill at play. Each .exe was linked up to one or a few others, and whenever you activated one, it would ‘ping’ its matched pairs. While the user would be aware of the location, it didn’t draw enough bandwidth to leave a discernable trace for any prying eyes. It was an extremely simple concept that usually let the Robot Masters relay positions to one another without having to use normal communications. Proto Man wondered what would be waiting on the other side of the signal.

Once he activated the file, it ran silently for two seconds before closing abruptly. A beat later, an indicator popped up on his HUD displaying the location of the next signal. When the coordinates vanished, an arrow remained to point him in the direction.

---

The serpent frowned as he made some notes about the footage he’d just witness from his hiding spot up in the canopy. Snake Man had been waiting weeks for one of Wood Man’s siblings to arrive at the spot. While he had located the puck a while ago, he had been unable to properly execute the program to show him the next location. From what he had surmised, it was encoded only for DWN-Series Robot Masters, but the Prodigal had just waltzed up and utilized it without batting an eye. Snake Man had felt a mild bit of irritation, simply because he’d spent days either trying to hack the program or manually explore the surrounding forests.

You certainly are special, Proto Man. The reptilian robot mused as he launched a Search Snake. “Follow the Prodigal and relay the path he takes back to me.” A blink from the mechanical snake indicated that it knew its purpose, and with that, it slithered down the tree and into the brush.

[Proto Man]

After an hour of wandering, Proto Man found himself standing in a small, overgrown area that may have once been a clearing but had since began losing the battle against the surrounding woods. Shrubs and overgrown weeds choked out the grasses, and a few shade intolerant trees were trying their hardest to soak up every ounce of sunlight before their shade tolerant neighbors outgrew and starved them.

In front of Proto Man, one of the trees in the pseudo-clearing was flashing red near its center. The overlay promptly clicked off, and the preteen robot circled the tree until he found the hatch. With a smile, he opened the bark-covered door to reveal an empty space inside the hollowed-out tree. What?

With a whiff a spear slammed into the tree trunk, missing the android’s face by inches. Spinning around, Proto Man found himself confronted by a slender, adult woman with pale purple skin and dull green hair tied back into a pony tail. Rather than exchange pleasantries, she wrenched her spear from the tree and swung it back, obviously intending to bring it back to bear on the youth. Before she got a chance to do so, Proto Man rushed forward and shoved her in the stomach with his good hand. The impact did more to disorient and unbalance the woman than injury her, so as she wavered, Proto Man grabbed the shaft of her weapon and crushed it between his gloved fingers.

Rather than relent, the boy’s attacker discarded the bottom half of her spear and came at him with the top. Falling back, Proto Man used his bum hand to parry away the chops and swipes as the purple-skinned warrior tried to get at his chest and face. What do I do to deserve stuff like this? As he tried to process the question, the woman lashed out with a slender boot and nailed him on the chin. With a dull thud, Proto Man fell back onto his haunches as his assailant’s shadow fell over him.

“I won’t allow you to spread the Blight, you fiend!” She yelled as she moved in for what she hoped would be a fatal blow. Unfortunately for her, the android had one good arm, and with a flash, the Proto Buster materialized and released a weak burst of energy into the thick leather armor over her chest. A gasp escaped her mouth as the impact drove the air from her lungs and knocked her backwards, loosening her grip on her weapon. Proto Man shoved up off his haunches and fired once again, reducing her already broken spear to ash.

Without skipping a beat, the strange woman reached down and drew a hunting knife from the inside of her boot.

Am I the only person in this place who isn’t hiding knives and weapons all over themselves?!

[Proto Man]

Like a predator vying for a kill, the woman rushed her quarry, her knife at the ready. She got a few feet before a string of low-intensity energy blasts knocked her off her feet and onto her back. Before the warrior could move, something darted out from the trees and locked her into a full nelson hold. Her eyes went wide as she managed to get out a yelp and a good thrash before the figure behind her smacked her skull into a tree trunk.

Proto Man looked on with an open mouth as Snake Man released his hold on the limp woman. “It’s okay, she’s alive,” he said as the red android rushed over and tried to see if the statement was true. When he saw that her chest was still rising and falling, he turned his attention to the serpent-themed machine standing beside him. “Are you satisfied? She won’t be unconscious long...the night elves are rather hardy despite how scrawny they look.”

“What are you doing here?” Proto Man asked, his tone staying neutral despite the frown on his face.

“I’ve been trailing you since you arrived in the Tangled Green, Proto Man.” For someone who was designed with a snake motif, Snake Man seemed very transparent and straightforward. “I think you know why.”

“Nope,” Proto Man shot back, causing the other Robot Master to furrow his brow.

“You came here because you picked up the signal from the pucks, right?” Snake Man asked before glancing down to make sure the ‘night elf’ was still unconscious.

“I fled to this place from the Ashen Plains. It was just by coincidence that I found the gate to here instead of the Nexus.”

Snake Man smirked as he crouched down and reached into a leather pouch tied to the woman’s belt. When he pulled his hand out of the bag, he was holding a data puck identical to the first one Proto Man had located. “These things are encoded. I tried to hack one for half a day, but the programming is beyond me. Something about you allows you to bypass the security without batting an eye. That’s why I thought you were here, but I guess it was just a coincidence.”

“I suppose so,” Proto Man said as he extended an open palm. Snake Man glanced down at the other robot’s hand, and after pondering for a silent moment, he passed the puck to his predecessor. “Do you know what the situation here is?”

“My brothers and I tend to avoid interacting with the Generation 2 machines. We were unable to see eye-to-eye, and rather than fight to the death, we simply went our separate ways. In recent months, most of the Gen 2s have been outside of Coruscant, and Shadow Man and the rest of us decided it was in our best interest to make sure they weren’t perpetrating any crimes.”

“So you’ve just been keeping tabs on them like they’re lab subjects or paroled felons? Who is keeping tabs on the eight of you?”

The serpent-themed machine flashed a toothy smile as he crouched down next to the night elf. As he spoke, he removed her belt and used it to tie her hands behind the small of her back. “You are different from all of us, aren’t you? The Gen 2s were designed to hurt people...plain and simple.”

“This place is a new lease on life. Do you really think Wood Man was out here scheming to murder people?”

“All we know is that there’s a plague in this verse and that Wood Man knew something about it. That’s why my brothers and I were trying to hack the pucks. Information.”

In Proto Man’s head, all he could picture was the frantic note scrawled by the missing robot: Tell my brothers I love them, and I am so sorry I wasn’t strong enough. “Do you even care that he could be hurt?” The look of amusement on Snake Man’s face was answer enough for Proto Man. “It was nice to meet you again, and I hope you have a nice time here in the jungle.” With that, the red robot walked off into the jungle, leaving behind a smirking Snake Man.

Once he was through the brush, Proto Man broke into a brisk jog as he proceeded to wirelessly access the puck’s data. Like the previous ‘journal,’ the device contained a movie log, a handful of documents, and the program to highlight the next puck. As he made his way through the jungle, the preteen android had the video file play on his HUD.

”Well it’s me, Wood Man. It’s been a few weeks since I arrived here in the Green, but I’ve made a lot of genuinely fascinating discoveries. Just a few days ago, I came across a settlement of green-skinned men with tusks, claws, and jagged teeth. They live around a temple in the region of the Tangled Green that more closely resembles a tropical rain forest. For the most part, they were pretty pleasant, but they were kind of obsessive about their religion. Religion isn’t really something I can understand, so I just did the polite thing and listened to their neat stories.

“After I left the green men, I found some purple-skinned women a few miles away. I accidentally stumbled over the border of their territory. Fortunately, they originally mistook me for something called a ‘treant,’ and that stopped them from immediately deciding to stab me with knives. I got to speak with the leader of the border patrol, and apparently, these night elves actually live in trees. They spoke about a ‘world tree’ and how their high priestess communes with the spirits of nature. If this wasn’t the Omniverse, I would have thought they were pulling my leg!

“Despite how fantastic their lives sound, they said they wouldn’t bring me back with them. Apparently, they have had to contend with some sort of disease or blight that is threatening their livelihood. When I try, I can be pretty sneaky, so I think I might follow these night elves around to see if I can’t learn anything else about what’s going on in the Tangled Green…”

The video file ended, leaving Proto Man with nothing more to do than trigger the next puck. While he didn’t completely trust Snake Man’s motivations, Wood Man himself had just mentioned a disease affecting the verse. He may have arrived in the Tangled Green by accident, but Proto Man certainly wasn’t going to walk away from the situation now that he was a part of it.

[Proto Man]

With Snake Man and the last data puck an hour or so behind him, Proto Man found himself in a jungle. His sensors told him that the temperature was close to 105 fahrenheit and the humidity was nearing 100 percent. Fortunately, he lacked the necessary parts to truly appreciate how miserable this sort of climate must make people who aren’t accustomed to it.

Proto Man came to a stop at the edge of one of the largest rivers he’d seen in a long while. Over his recent trek through the Green, he’d hopped over a few smaller creek, and he’d used a fallen tree to cross over a slightly larger body of water. In his years before the Omniverse, he’d wandered down the Ohio River for a period of weeks, and he’d always been able to see Now he was looking at a horizon that was all water. If he didn’t know any better (or have the GPS information), Proto Man would have assumed he was staring out into the ocean.

How the heck? The youth mused as he crouched near the water and dipped his good hand into the murky liquid. Even at this point in his life, he didn’t know how he felt about water...his only use for it was to wash the grime from his hair or to keep his organic layer from drying out. The robot’s first idea was to try and simply walk along the bottom of the river until he reached the other side. Unlike a person, he could rely on his internal compass and GPS to make sure he didn’t get turned around. What he didn’t know, however, was whether or not the water could interfere with his systems. What if he filled up with water and burst?

Can I rust? As the thought ran through his head, a popup appeared on his internal display. The window was from an online encyclopedia and clearly stated that the material he was made from wouldn’t rust.

“Okay…” Proto Man muttered as he adjusted his helmet so it rested securely on his head. He then took a moment to tighten his scarf. “Let’s do this.”

[Proto Man]

After gathering up all the faux confidence a preteen machine could muster, Proto Man stepped off the bank and into the river. Almost immediately, his internal sensors started to blink to indicate that his feet were suddenly experiencing a cooler surrounding temperature than the rest of his body. The application was designed as an early warning system for extreme heat or cold to ensure that Proto Man’s inability to feel heat or cold like a human didn’t lead him to exposure himself to dangerous environments.

Once he was certain he was standing on solid ground, the android continued forward. The current was stronger than he would have expected given the size of the river, but it was nothing he couldn’t easily manage. Each step was slow and calculated to ensure he didn’t trip over a rock or anything else beneath the water. After a few paces, the liquid was up to his neck, and the robot found himself dreading having to go underneath the surface. It is just water… you’re good. Clenching his jaw to keep his mouth shut, Proto Man took the next step, bringing the water up to the bottom of his visor.

Before he could walk under the surface of the river, something flashed on the corner of his HUD. Proto Man jerked his head in the direction just in time to watch as a black shape slammed into his chest. The impact shattered his footing and caused him to bowl over backwards. Before he could right himself, the current had grabbed hold of him and he was being pulled downstream. Even worse, he the undertow was also acting to drag him into increasingly deeper waters.

Everything was black, aside from the warning indicators trying to inform him that he was upside-down and being dragged by something not of his own designs. Proto Man quickly dismissed the boxes before planting his good hand down into the riverbed in an attempt to find purchase on something or anything. After a few more stressful seconds, his hand slammed into a giant rock embedded firmly into the ground. He quickly clenched his fingers as hard as he could, and fortunately for him, the rock didn’t shatter under his strength. With a dull thump, Proto Man’s legs passed over him, and he pulled himself close to the rock.

Just as soon as he thought he had a chance to relax, something wrenched at his right leg, causing him to lose his one-handed grip on the rock. Before he knew it, he was once again at the mercy of the river.

***

He’d lost track of Proto Man somewhere near the river. Through some means unknown to Snake Man, the Prodigal had managed to give his Search Snakes the slip. The last information the little machines had to relay was that they’d watched the other Robot Master attempt to manually ford the River Animus.

As the serpentine machine mulled over the other robot’s actions, he started to respect the ingenuity of the prototype android. Had Proto Man summoned a boat or raft through omnilium, he would have been simple to track, so he had risked his own well-being to ford the dangerous, turbid river to escape continued surveillance. The tactical choice was brilliant given the fact that there were probably many more eyes and ears on Proto Man.

I will find you, Prodigal… you may be intelligent, but subterfuge is my forte, not yours.

***

The River Animus was mighty.

At its widest, the Animus was nearly seventeen miles wide and around a hundred and fifty feet from surface down to riverbed. Its drainage basin covered nearly two-thirds of the Tangled Green, spanning a multitude of ecosystems and habitats. It was hard for anyone to travel anywhere in the verse and not come across one of the mighty river’s tributaries or feeders.

Due to its scale, the river supported dozens of settlements throughout the Tangle Green, from small, ‘native’ villages all the way to the homes of the ninjas and night elves. The river provided clean water and a fresh supply of food for most of year. For several months out of the year, the increased rainfall would cause the river to flood and turn into a fast-running death trap for anyone foolish enough to fight against a force of nature.

Many worshipped the Animus and revered its ability to go from a gentle giver of life to a monstrous devourer of all things.

It was that season of the year now, and a young night elf woman found herself wandering down what was now the new edge of the river. A few months earlier, she had been about twenty feet to her left and leisurely skipping stones in the crystal blue waters. Now she was looking out at the giant, submerged trees. They were the survivors—their less sturdy brothers and sisters had already been consumed by the river.

As the elven woman wandered along the edge of the Animus, she expected very little to happen. The rainy season tended to curtail the constant hordes of wandering goblins.

Unfortunately, the elf’s idyllic stroll alongside the rain-engorged river came to an abrupt stop when part of it exploded upward. A quarter mile from shore, there was a brilliant flash of yellow light that started beneath the surface. A moment later, a beam of energy erupted out from the river at an almost forty-five degree angle, bringing a column of frothy, steaming water along for the ride. It took the elf only a brief moment to see the red, human-looking shape at the apex of the beam, which fizzled away after a few moments. Two heartbeats later, there was the sound of cracking wood as a tree tried to absorb the impact of the human and failed miserably.

***

Blergh… Proto Man shook as he stood up off the ground. With his good hand, he pried off his helmet, causing close to a quart of water to cascade down the rest of his face and onto his body. From what he could tell, he hadn’t sustained any serious injuries, despite the fact that rocks had torn at his suit and left garish wounds in his plated areas. Where to? After a short delay to recalibrate his position, a path flash to life on the android’s HUD. While he wasn’t as close as he would have been a few miles upstream, Proto Man could still reach the puck quickly if he kept up a nice pace.

Little did the preteen android realize, he had acquired a new stalker following his liberation from the river.

***

Mireya Vasquez always felt her most natural when she was by herself in the jungles of the Tangled Green, far removed from the rest of elven society. Due to her nonexistent father’s non-elven lineage, she was an outsider in Yggdrasil, but her complexion, accent, and mannerisms likewise made her ‘the other’ in the majority of Camelot’s various duchies. She’d been in the Omniverse for a few years now, and she had yet to find a place to fit in.

Now she found herself trailing a child decked out in plates of armor who’d seemingly blasted himself up out of the Animus River. From what she could tell, he was following some kind of trail. Every now and again, he would pause and readjust his direction by a few degrees. As the boy kept moving forward Mireya had to wonder if he knew that he was heading deeper and deeper into one of the most unpleasant parts of the Tangled Green.

The taint from the Blight had grown over the last year and a half, and from what the night elves’ leader said, it could potentially overwhelm the entire Tangled Green if allowed to spread unchecked for much longer. Mireya herself had never encountered any of the blighted creatures, but she had also been smart enough to skirt around said regions when she was out and about. Now, however, she was finding herself succumbing to curiosity, and while she was no cat, she also knew in the back of her mind that things could go sour at any moment.

[Proto Man]

It took him a little longer than he appreciated, but Proto Man managed to make it to the next data puck as the sun was beginning to dip beneath the canopy. Like the others, Wood Man had tucked it away inside a hollowed section of a tree trunk. Unlike the last puck, this one didn’t come with an ambush and a slew of company. Once he’d accessed the data, the preteen android dropped down to his haunches, set down the puck, and watched as the holographic video diary started to play.

“I saw Yggdrasil today...it was amazing! These night elves live inside a tree some impossibly massive that I couldn’t see any of the branches even from the top of the forest canopy. The part I saw was so unbelievably large that I think you could fit Brooklyn inside and still have plenty of wiggle room. Did the night elves create this place or did they just happen to be the first ones to stake a claim to it? I need to know more about this place… I’m going to try and plant some bugs to see if I can’t record some videos or audio. The researcher and environmentalist in me won’t have it any other way.”

The feed vanished for a moment, and an indicator on Proto Man’s screen told him that the second recording, made four days after the first, would play after a short delay.

“It’s been a few days, and I can safely say that these night elves have mastered the art of living harmoniously with nature. They seem to live in perfect balance with the environment, because I’ve yet to see any sort of waste or by-products from their city. Furthermore, they have a very different gender binary than humans. From what I’ve either observed personally or through my bugs, the females and males seem to live apart from one another, at least at the upper parts of the hierarchy.

“The woman are either priestesses or warriors. I overheard the term ‘sentinel’ thrown around a lot, so I imagine that’s either a rank or what they are referred to collectively. The majority of men, on the other hand, are referred to as ‘druids’ and seem to have some sort of magical connection to nature. I witnessed a group of druids travel several hours outside of Yggdrasil before they stopped in a small clearing bordered by ancient trees. I got to watch them perform a ritual that actually brought the trees to life… well, I guess they were always alive, but these trees were sentient. They conversed with the night elves as if they had known each other for lifetimes.

“Unfortunately, what I overheard did not have happy connotations. The trees were expressing a concern for something called a ‘Blight.’ From their tone and somber expressions, I imagine that they are not just talking about some sort of disease, but I can’t be certain. Despite the ancient trees’ visible apprehension, the druids were not sullen. In fact, they seemed somewhat excited. They spoke about a new operation they were launching to investigate means to curtail the spread of the blight. From what it sounds like, they are going to send scouting parties to probe into regions of the forest affected by this disease.

“I’m sure it’s not my place, but I’m going to make my best effort to trail one of those scouting parties. I may not be strong or capable of slaying monsters, but I have several decades’ worth of botanical research crammed inside my head. I should at least investigate this and see if I can’t help out.

That seems like the moral course of action... “ Wood Man paused to let out a soft chuckle. “Morality...how very human of me.”

With that, the video diary concluded and the projection of the Robot Master fizzled out. Proto Man opened up a window with a list of the puck’s contents and saw that it was crammed full of information on the night elves’ unique society here in the Tangled Green. From the look of the file names, Wood Man had managed to learn a lot, and there was half a dozen documents filled with his personal observations. Proto Man filled those away in a spot where he could easily access them. Once he had the whole story, he’d go through Wood Man’s data, but right now, he just wanted to track down the next puck. From the sound of things, the next diary entry would involve the woodland Robot Master’s first meeting with the Blight, and if that first note was any indication, things had gone downhill from there.

[Proto Man]

This part of the Tangled Green was different from anywhere and everywhere else.

There was no life.

Whatever ecosystem had existed before had left behind zero traces, aside from the twisted remains of dead trees still implanted into the gray, lifeless soil. If it was daytime, the place probably would have just felt uneasy, but in the light of the moon, the gnarled trees and the piles of detritus took on a whole new sinister meaning. The preteen android tried to ignore all the moving shadows in his peripheral vision as he closed in on the signal from the puck. When he found it, it was inside what remained of a collapsed tree. Proto Man found no traces of a hidden compartment … only the puck jammed into the rotting pulp.

As he removed the little device, the red robot took a moment to scan his surroundings one more time. He could tell he was being watched, but since he lacked infrared or night vision, he could only speculate as to what was out there in the dead forest. Once he had convinced himself that he was okay for the time being, Proto Man opted to download the video diary and play it on his HUD. After a short delay, it started to play, and almost immediately, the prototype Robot Master knew he wasn’t going to enjoy it.

“W-w-wood Man here… it has been a few days since I managed to follow one of those elven scouting parties out into the Green. The actual tracking part was quite easy, which raises a lot of questions in my mind about the talent of their Sentinels.” Wood Man paused to chuckle, but the laugh was weak and almost halfhearted. “I knew almost immediately when they passed into the blighted forest. While I lack the nuance of human senses, the change in environmental factors was drastic enough to raise every single alarm in my system. The different was visible as well… this infection has a terrible effect on what it infects.

“Rather than try to describe the flora, I’ve simply recorded a few images and videos on this puck.” The woodland machine winced and clutched at something outside the view of whatever recording device he had used. “S-sorry for that… anyway, I pressed on behind the elves. By the time I realized they’d stopped, I was only a hundred feet away from them when they were attacked by the monsters. There had to be at least three dozen of them…they descended upon the elves like rapid dogs. I wanted to help, but it was clear from the first engagement that the night elves were doomed to defeat.

“The blighted creatures appear to have been elves… they were wearing the tattered remains of elven robes and carried matching weaponry.” Wood Man paused, almost as if he needed to collect his breath, despite the fact that he had no lungs. “I concealed myself until the fighting ended. I couldn’t destroy Mega Man, so I know I had no chance against those creatures,” the frown on Wood Man’s face showed how conflicted he still felt about his decision. Proto Man wondered what he would have done if he had been in the other Robot Master’s shoes.

“Rather than flee, I decided to feed a desire to learn more, so I crept to one of the dying elves. The Sentinel had been stabbed several times, but the fatal wound had been caused by the jagged teeth that had torn through her neck and the underlying blood vessels. I’m not a healer, so I could only watch and listen as her gurgling screams faded away into silence.” Once again, the machine paused and frowned. Proto Man had seen that same look on the face of humans when they cried, but no tears streaked down from the woodland machine’s cheeks. “I watched the Blight consume the dead elf. Before my eyes, her flesh turned an ashen tone and her body was twisted and mutated into a nightmare version of its original form. After only a half an hour, the corpse stood up, retrieved its sword, and shambled off into the diseased forest.

“I knew I needed more data, so I wanted to examine a still corpse, but after a few minutes, it started to stir. Before I could properly react, it attacked me with the sword it had failed to defend itself with.

“I managed to knock it away and escape, but it cut open my right thigh,” Wood Man reached down once again to touch something outside the view of the recording device. “I thought I was safe until I noticed that the wound wasn’t normal. Much like an untreated human wound, the slash started to fester, and I now know that I have been… afflicted by the Blight. I went through an initial state of panic, which was only worsened when I reached out to Quick Man. He didn’t see those creatures or watch as they murdered their former kinswomen… I don’t want that to happen to me.

“I will be strong… My first reaction was to excise the infection, but it simply regrew within a few hours. It seems benign for the moment, and while I am a machine, I do not believe for a second that this pestilence won’t find some way of doing me harm. I have to stop it. This ecosystem and its inhabitants rely on me to find a cure or some other means to prevent its spread.

“I am the perfect test subject. I know I can make a difference...

I just have to be strong.”

[Proto Man]

There was no doubt in the robot’s mind that the Blight was something that needed to be destroyed. Based on Wood Man’s collection of ‘Blight data’ alone, anyone with a shred of common sense or logic would be see that this disease could easily destroy everything in its path. Through several gigabytes of data, the woodland Robot Master had cataloged all of his initial observations, including tissue analysis and images of afflicted animals and trees. On top of that, there were dozens of videos of infected elves, plants, and other animals. Whatever the Blight was, it turned anything it touched into a warped, nightmarish version of itself. Wood Man had images of monsters that had once been elves, possibly the same ones he’d been attacked by.

When he reached the last files, Proto Man was left with one lingering question: What had happened to Wood Man?

With the images of the Blight’s victims still fresh in his head, the Robot Master started toward the next data puck. He knew from the information that he wasn’t quite in the Blight-affected area of the Tangled Green. This area was simply dead, which was only a slight improvement above ‘fatally tainted.’ Based on the coordinates from the puck, Proto Man would find the next piece of the story inside the tainted part of the Green.

What else will I find?

The thought remained with Proto Man as he pushed through the dead jungle. Over his head, the skies were slowly starting to take on streaks of purple, and a glimpse at his clock indicated that he’d spent the better part of the night hours reviewing Wood Man’s documents. The notion that the sun would soon rise actually brought a smile to the android’s face. As irrational as it was for a robot to be unsettled by nighttime in a dead jungle, he knew that entering the blighted region during the day would be far more advantageous.

Feeling a little reassured that the sun would soon be with him, Proto Man marched on, oblivious to the fact that he was being trailed by two separate entities.

[Proto Man]

After an hour more of travel, Proto Man came to a small ridge that overlooked a shallow valley. From the indicator on his HUD, the data puck would be waiting for him down below.

At the sound of the voices drifting up from ahead of him, he slipped behind a relatively sturdy tree corpse and tried to steal a look down into the valley. A quick gaze before dipping back into cover revealed six night elves pacing around. Given the fact that they were armed with weapons and light armor, the robot figured them to be scouts of some sort.

“Why are we out this far?” One of them shouted, her voice easily carrying up to the android. “I had a sister on one of these scouting parties, and I have no intention of mirroring her fate.”

“We are out this far because the High Priestess has willed it!” A second night elf rasped. This night elves’ tone was that of a superior addressing an irritating subordinate, and a quick glance revealed that she indeed had much fancier equipment than the other five Sentinels.

“I apologize, Watcher, but how can we be certain that the prime in question is even still in the Green? He may have left,” a third elf inquired.

“We know he’s been following the trail of the Machine Treant, who spent several days camped in this location. We will remain here until we intercept him or receive orders to return to our original post.”

“Does the High Priestess really believe that a child can help stop the Blight? Those two other primes failed, and they were both skilled combatants.”

Proto Man scowled as the realization set in that these night elves were waiting for him to arrive. Based on his last encounter with one of the purple-skinned women, he had no desire to chat with a few heavily armored versions.

“This prime can access the records of the Machine Treant, and nothing is more important than understanding what that robot learned about the Blight. Nothing,” the commanding officer snapped back.

[Proto Man]

He was never a fan of the waiting game.

Unfortunately, the night elves didn’t look to be heading anywhere anytime soon. With their conversation behind them, the warriors had settled into an uncomfortable silence as they waited for the robot who would never come to them. For his part, Proto Man simply slipped under a bush and deactivated most of his system processes. At the end of the day, he knew he’d outlast them, regardless of how dedicated they may be to their mission. Sooner or later, they’d either head home or at least slip up enough to provide him the opening he required.

I should invest in some sort of stealth feature… that’d be nice right about now.

As the day began to slip away, a noise outside of the ordinary shook Proto Man out of his idle state. From down in the valley, he heard a chorus of monstrous roars that came from no normal creature. A beat later, he heard elven shouts as the Sentinels moved to defend themselves.

With a grunt, Proto Man shoved up off the ground and scrambled into a standing position. As he rushed down into the valley, his outstretched hand turned into a Proto Buster, and the barrel light up with the familiar hum of charging energy. By the time he reached the bottom of the hill, he caught sight of the blighted creature. At one point, the humanoid figure may have been an elf, but the transformative disease had corrupted its flesh and burnt away any semblance of its former self. With a flash of yellow light, Proto Man caught the nearest creature in the chest, but instead of a fatal blast, the blow merely threw the beast to the ground.

The nearby night elf, who had been on the verge of being assaulted, turned and stared down at Proto Man for a handful of seconds before recalling the situation at hand. “Form up!” She screamed as she drew a curved blade. “They’re strong, but the Darkspawn will die like everything else!”

[Proto Man]

From the darkness, the creatures rushed forth like a living wave of pestilence. Most of them had once been elves, but many were from species that Proto Man had yet to encounter. While his battle analyzer application told him they had once been ‘orcs,’ all the robot understood was the threat that the six-foot monsters represented. One let out a guttural roar as it smashed an axe into the skull of a straggling night elf. The woman’s slender form crumpled beneath the massive impact, and by the time she hit the ground, it was obvious she wasn’t going to stand back up.

Following the lead of the surviving night elves, Proto Man formed up with the rest of them to create a tight crescent. Three of the elves had brandished curved blades, and the other four had drawn rune-adorned bows. Without bothering to acknowledge the stranger in their ranks, the leader, who stood at the formation’s center, bared her teeth as she flashed a look to the archers. “Fire at will, Sisters!”

Proto Man watched with a degree of fascination as the women released a volley of faintly glowing arrows into the horde of encroaching darkspawn. Once the first quartet was out, it was joined quickly by a second, a third, and before too long, Proto Man had lost track. Despite the elves’ onslaught, the wave simply crushed its dead members under its boots, and before long, the night air was consumed by the cacophony of clanging metal.

Opting for a more efficient means of damaging the mass, Proto Man switched to assault mode and started spraying pellets of energy at the closest creatures. The rounds were too weak to kill anything, but they served their intended purpose of spreading around the pain. More than that, they distracted the creatures and made them set their sights on the four-foot boy with the gun for an arm. Around the android, a trio of night elves gathered. Without saying a thing, they formed a triangle around him and started lashing out at the same scorched darkspawn now vying for his throat.

“Watch out,” Proto Man yelled as his color palette shifted to orange and red. Just as they had formed around him without words, the night elves followed his instructions and peeled away just as the torrent of flames erupted out of the preteen’s weapon. The amassed darkspawn let out primal screams as they were turned into stumbling, flailing infernos. Those that didn’t die after the first few seconds were quickly dispatched by the nearby Sentinels.

Keeping his weapon primed, Proto Man turned and watched as one of the overpowered night elves was bludgeoned in the skull with a rock. The woman managed a faint whimper before collapsing into a lifeless heap. A few feet away, the other survivor was stabbed through the heart with an oversized cleaver. If he had blood, it would have run cold, but instead, Proto Man lifted up his gun once more and released a burst of atomic fire.

This time, the darkspawn that remained fled back into the blighted forest, leaving their dead and injured behind. As Proto Man watched, the three surviving night elves hacked the still-living darkspawn into an assortment of bloody pieces. Despite the fact that they’d helped protect him and vice versa, the android couldn’t help but feel a little off put by just how much pleasure they seemed to find in murdering the dying monsters.

When the night elves weren’t looking, Proto Man found the data puck inside a nearby dead tree and ran away as fast as his synthetic legs would carry him.

[Proto Man]

Only when he was certain he was alone in the dead woods did Proto Man play the harrowing video file on the data puck.

After a short delay, a somewhat lethargic Wood Man appeared on screen. “It’s been a week since those elves were butchered… yet I still endure. T-the blight seems almost dormant, and it doesn’t seem to be spreading far from the sight of infection. I … I’m not exactly sure if I should breathe a sigh of relief, but for the moment, I think I’m okay.” Wood Man winced as he shifted around, trying to find a seated position that didn’t strain the damaged limb. “I’m going to return to that stretch of woods, I think. If I can get my hands on one of those corpses then I might be able to study how this disease affects animals.”

The video feed cut off abruptly, and when it returned, the time stamp indicated that three days had passed. Wood Man’s face was dotted with brown flecks, and the android seemed physically exhausted.

“This disease is transformative…that much I can say for certain. It also has properties of both a virus and a parasite. It damages and changes the internal chemistry of its host, but at the same time, it likewise mutates the outer layer of tissues, which results in the blackened flesh and other unsettling growths that appear on the infected elves and humans. It’s hard to tell how much of the original being remains once the blight has wholly consumed them, but it is obvious that victims tend lose a great deal of their higher-level thought processes.

“Strangely enough, the internal physiology doesn’t seem to be impacted much by the blight… aside from the blood. The blight must somehow provide oxygen to its host, because the blood takes on a dark purple color and ceases to transport hemoglobin. There’s also a marked decrease in pH that would kill any normal human.

“There also seems to be a stark difference between individuals who are killed by infected creatures and those who succumb to the disease. The blight restores the most basic of motor functions, and what you have is little more than a rabid beast… those that suffer and succumb retain far more trappings of sentient beings. You can pick out those who fought on till the end, because they walk with their shoulders squared and their backs straight.

“While this was all very useful, I fear I’m not a single step closer to understanding how to cure this disease. There are so many variables, and at this stage, I haven’t the first clue where to begin. I just hope I’ll be able to find the needle within the haystack before it’s too late…”

The video cut to black for a few beats before a frantic Wood Man appeared on the screen. The date in the bottom corner of the screen indicated that a week had transpired since his last recording.

“The darkness is coming!” The android screamed, his eyes wild as he took a moment to erratically check his peripherals. “I-I…” Words seemed to fail the machine as he grabbed at the sides of his head and winced. “I was stupid to think I’d be safe! The pestilence is spreading. I can feel it burning through my circuits. My circuits! Th-this is more adaptive than I could have imagined…” Wood Man trailed off, and for nearly half a minute, the android just sat there, clutching the sides of his head and rocking softly. When he spoke again, his voice had regained a little of its normal composure. “I saw a night elf survive for no more than three days, but I… I think I might have a little longer than that. I’m going to return to the heart of the blighted forest.

“If the end is drawing closer, I need to conquer this. If not for myself, I need to do help whoever follows in my footsteps, whether they’re an elf or a human or a machine. I need a living sample… need to … need to … “

As Proto Man watched, Wood Man continued to repeat himself until the feed ended. The red robot was hoping that this was the end of the video feed, but after some static, Wood Man appeared once again. The sylvan machine was covered in black stains that dripped down his face and chest. His eyes seemed empty and dark as he stared into the camera for a few moments.

“I captured one of them alive,” Wood Man muttered as he knelt down and picked up something below the camera’s line of sight. After a short pause, he lifted up what remained of a mutilated elven darkspawn. “Th-the stronger ones are capable of speech. It’s a bit garbled and growly, but my system had no difficulty translating it. After a bit of … persuasion, the creature revealed some rather curious information about its origins.

“It referred to its disease as a Blight, and everything seemed to indicate a proper noun. Based on its excessive use of third-person pronouns, I’m starting to think that the infected develop some sort of mental connection. A hive mind, perhaps? It spoke of something called an ‘emissary.’ I’m led to believe it was referring to a specific creature. I’m going to track down this emissary and extract additional information from it.” The crazed look in Wood Man’s eyes betrayed the real intentions he had for the beast.

“In… in other news,” the machine muttered before growling and throwing the corpse aside like a bag of garbage. “The infection compromised my leg. Rather than allow it to fester unchecked, I excised the area.” On that note, Wood Man lifted up his own severed leg and flashed an uncharacteristically manic smile at the camera. “I’m going to go find the darkspawn emissary. I’m going to find it and beat the answers out of it with my own diseased limb…

“Until next time.”

[Proto Man]

Proto Man was happy he couldn’t experience real emotions. If he could, he knew at this moment in time he’d be paralyzed with a mixture of horror and grief. The first few videos had been so full of life and wonder, and the most recent ones starred a terrifying, half-dead shell of the machine Proto Man had been tracking since his arrival in the Tangled Green. The wonder and curiosity had rotten away, leaving behind only paranoia and malice.

Do I even want to see what the next puck contains?

It took the red robot only a few moments to realize that there was no way he could walk away at this moment. What if Wood Man had found some way to prevent the spread of the Blight? What if he had found a cure? It was difficult not to leave, but Proto Man knew he had to press on… if not for Wood Man than for the countless others who could suffer at the hands of the Blight.

With that to motivate him, the robot continued toward the next data puck, which appeared to be located deeper into the blighted region of the forest. He kept the Proto Buster active and ready for use in the event that anything tried to jump him from the shadows.

Fortunately for the preteen android, nothing that went bump in the night attempted to drag him off into the darkness as he trudged through the forest. When he reached the end of the eight mile trip, he found himself staring at a large tree. Unlike the rest of the blighted, mutated piece of flora that filled the surrounding miles of forest, this tree was unaffected. That wasn’t to say it wasn’t 100% dead, but the two-hundred foot tree loomed high over its surrounding neighbors. At the base of the tree, Proto Man saw that the soil was loose, and what looked to be the top of a wooden chest was poking up through the dirt.

Dropping to his knees in front of the tree, the robot brushed away some of the black soil. After a gentle knock, he could confirm he was staring down at a semi-buried chest. Furrowing his brow, Proto Man started to scoop away the dirt until the chest was loose enough for him to pluck it up out of its haphazard grave and set it on solid ground. The chest wasn’t locked, so all he had to do was unhook the latch.

Inside, the seemingly nondescript chest was filled with only two items. One was a data puck, which bore a few hairline scratches and stains. The other item looked to be an oil-stained log at first glance. It was only when Proto Man picked it up and looked at it in more that he realized he was staring at the lower half of Wood Man’s leg—the very appendage the robot had sawed off in a mix of terror and madness. The preteen immediately dropped the limb back into the box, knowing full well that his half-brother had been infected via a wound to the same leg.

Turning his attention back to the data puck, Proto Man picked it up and fiddled with it until he managed to get it operational. Once the download was complete, he set it down on the severed limb and watched the video play out on his internal display.

[Proto Man]

When Wood Man appeared on the screen, he looked everything like an animated corpse. The slight luster of his exterior had faded, and cracks and fissures lined his faux wood exterior. A closer look revealed that those fault lines were actually black veins that occasionally seemed to glow a dull red.

“Hi… this is Wood Man.” The machine’s voice was ragged and wheezy. His once green eyes were now a mixture of black and red, and his ‘skin’ was an ashen shade of gray. Aside from the physical degradation, Wood Man bore several surface injuries, and an entire chunk of his head had been tore away, revealing the scratched skull beneath. “I can hear them whispering in my mind. Dozens… hundreds of voices all calling out to me from somewhere beyond the veil of reality. I was afraid at first, but I can drone them out now and then. I’m not sure how much longer I can fend off this disease. Robots aren’t supposed to know weakness or fatigue, but I feel both.

“But… but I shouldn’t focus on my condition. Th-there are other things that I must doc… document before the end.” Wood Man dropped back onto his haunches, and the recording device followed him down. “I found the darkspawn emissary, and to keep matters short, I lived up to my original role as a combat robot. I don’t believe it expected to face a machine, because many of its powers had little effect on me. Once I defeated its body guards, I was able to incapacitate the creature.

“From there, I attempted an extraction of intelligence from the darkspawn,” Wood Man sighed. “If I didn’t know my death was imminent, I wouldn’t be able to live with some of things I did to that thing and its retinue. Unfortunately, the emissary is not the source of the Blight. Like my brothers and me, it was a secondary… an all-to mortal individual trapped in the wonder and nightmare of the Omniverse.

“But I know who it serves!” Wood Man smiled, revealing a mouthful of yellowed teeth and blackened gums. “The Blight is linked to an ‘Archdemon,’ who not only serves as the source of the Blight but also as the leader of the darkspawn. Those voices in my head? The ones that scream and gnaw at my sanity? I can only guess they’re some final phase of the corruption process meant to draw the infected to the Archdemon. I wonder how long I have until I can’t resist the calls? Then what will become of me?

The sylvan machine shook his head, as if he was trying to shake the thoughts from his mind. “Sorry… so sorry. I need to focus on recording the pertinent intelligence. I’m not sure what the Archdemon may look like, but I do know two things.” Wood Man lifted an index finger that was losing the last digit. “It is not in the Tangled Green… take a look at this if you don’t believe me.” At that, the robot panned the camera to reveal a stack of darkspawn corpses. “They’re not elves or orcs or even ninjas. In my experience, the darkspawn always seem to retain some indicators of their past lives.” The camera zoomed in to reveal a faded logo on some of the creature’s chest plates and shields. “That’s the Darkshire coat of arms. It is my belief that the emissary had some of the oldest and strongest warriors with it. And where would they come from, if not the origin of the Blight?

“The second thing I know? The Archdemon is a prime…it simply has to be. The Blight is far too unnatural to have naturally started in the Tangled Green or the Pale Moors. If I had to guess based on my understanding of history, the Archdemon probably served Diablo. That would also explain the origins in the Pale Moors.

“Primes are immortal…I know this. But I also know it is possible to banish them from the Omniverse. While the Blight may be rooted in science, it seems like the only way to bring an end to it is metaphysical. When I was ‘observing’ the elves, I picked up the method they use to banish primes to the Underverse. It’s a series of glyphs used as a circle of power to channel the omnilium needed to banish a dying prime’s death shroud to the Underverse. The key word there is ‘dying’… it won’t work on a healthy prime.

“I have the glyphs to create the banishment circle, but I can’t say with any confidence that I will make it. If I was human, the pain I feel right now would be unbearable. I’ve never been so happy to be a machine, because it means I have a little more control over myself.” Wood Man stood up, and in the process, Proto Man noticed that his severed leg had regrown. In its place, a twisted, blackened branch of a leg had spawn from the former stump. The limb twitched unnaturally as its sinewy muscles flexed.

“I’m going to leave these records of my time in the Tangled Green. This case… someone may be able to learn from me and stop this Blight from overrunning the forest and its inhabitants. Tomorrow morning, I will start my journey back toward the gate.

“If… if it’s one of my brothers who find these recordings… I want you to promise me that you’ll destroy me. If I succumb to this infection, I want you to promise me now that you’ll destroy me. I know that the Omniverse is a perversion of our real world, so I want you to promise me you won’t let me wander around as one of those soulless beasts.

“Promise me.”

With that, the feed went dead.

Unlike Wood Man, Proto Man felt a much wider array of the human condition. The preteen android sat in front of the chest for a good long while before he had anywhere close to the strength needed to stand. As he rose up off the ground, he collected the puck and picked up Wood Man’s severed leg. On the other side of the leg, he saw that his sylvan half-brother had etched a various array of runes into his own limb. Common sense told him that he was probably looking at the glyphs used to banish a dying prime.

Glancing around his surroundings, Proto Man searched for a few moments until he found a sharp rock. After biting down on his lip (for moral support more than anything else), the android began to dig into the metal piece that covered his wrist and much of his forearm. It took a few minutes to get going, but once he did, it only took Proto Man half an hour to gouge the circular array of symbols into his arm. When he finished, he discarded the rock, which was stained red from the now marred paint of his armor.

Picking Wood Man’s leg back up, the red robot cradled it in his arm as he turned around and began toward the final puck. His now thoroughly mapped out GPS app told him he was traveling toward the location of the very first puck. As he walked toward what was undoubtedly the final of Wood Man’s hidden messages, the final words of the dying machine echoed in Proto Man’s head.

Promise me!

“I promise, Wood Man…” Proto Man muttered as he made his way back through the blighted forest. “I promise.”

[Proto Man]

Unbeknownst to Proto Man, a darkspawn had been eying him with hungry eyes from the shadows. But as the creature had moved to jump upon the seemingly absentminded preteen, a hand wrapped around its neck. Before it could voice its rage at being grabbed, the darkspawn’s neck was broken. As the creature collapsed against a nearby tree, a snake-themed android brushed off his hands and set his eyes on the red machine a few dozen feet away.

Why is he turning around? Snake Man pondered as he slinked back into the darkness. The reptilian machine had watched from the darkness as the Prodigal processed the data from the puck, but after taking a moment to mutilate himself, the other machine was now reversing his path. If only I could just speak with him. The serpent frowned. Why did his brother have to be so stubborn? They would be better served traveling together, where they could defend one another.

Snake Man looked down at his hands, which were dirty with grime and blood alike. It hadn’t been easy protecting the Prodigal from ambush, but whether or not he supported Proto Man’s decision to ‘go it alone,’ the serpent knew he had to protect his brother. It was only through the red robot that they would be able to unlock and decipher Wood Man’s knowledge. I just hope this is worth it…

***

A few miles away from Wood Man’s previous cache, Proto Man found himself reaching the top of a valley as the sun started to crest over the horizon. He remembered this valley too well, because it had been the scene where the night elves had been camped out in an attempt to intercept him.

“You saved a few of them,” someone spoke from behind the robot, their feminine voice a faint whisper.

With a yelp, Proto Man spun around, dropping the leg and hoisting his hands up in an attempt to defend himself from a certain ambush. When no such initial attack came, he lowered his arms and found himself looking at someone who certainly had some night elves in their family tree. The attire she wore, although slightly modified, was similar to that of the other Sentinels Proto Man had encountered. Aside from a different style of bow, the woman’s skin was also closer to the color mauve than violet.

“Have you been following me?” The preteen inquired as he glanced at his surroundings to make sure there wasn’t anyone else lurking among the trees.

“Yes, since you came exploding up out of the Animus. You could say I was curious about a youth with that type of power, but now I’m interested in what exactly you know about the Blight. Are you trying to heal the woods?” Strangely enough, the woman spoke with an accent that sounded familiar to Proto Man. She sounded just like the Spanish-speaking populations on New York’s Lower East Side. The robot had spent six months living in Loisaida.

“Who and what are you?” Proto Man asked without acknowledging the woman’s own question.

“Mireya Vasquez.” The night elf responded. “I’m what you might call a ‘hermit.’ Whoever summoned me into the Omniverse wanted me to be biracial, and as a result, I haven’t made too many acquaintances that can speak a whole sentence. Such is the life of an unwanted, unintended secondary,” she grinned at her own joke, revealing imperfect teeth closer to a human than those of the night elves.

“I’m sorry,” Proto Man muttered. “I understand what it’s like to feel unwanted wherever you go.” The sentiment was true, reflecting the red robot’s entire existence up until he discovered his siblings in the Omniverse.

“So are you out to heal the woods? Or are you just lost in the Green?”

The android smiled faintly. “One of my half-brothers came here and became infected by the Blight. He left a video record, along with all his notes and analysis.” Proto Man lifted his arm to show the banishment circle etched around his wrist guard. “Once I collect his last entry, I’m going to the Pale Moors to destroy the source of the Blight.”

“The source?” Mireya asked. “There’s a source?”

“Yes,” the machine responded with a wider smile. “There’s a prime called an Archdemon that created the Blight, and Wood Man’s belief is that the Archdemon’s banishment will prevent the Blight from spreading.”

The half-night elf’s eyes light up at the idea of an end to the Blight. “Do you mind if I accompany you?” She asked, her tone sounding genuine as she reached around her back and retrieved her bow. “I know how to handle myself, and while you certainly don’t need the firepower, you could probably use an extra set of eyes and an extra pair of fists.”

Proto Man nodded his head. He wouldn’t admit it, but he would have had her along just for the sake of company.

“So you going to tell me your name or should I call you Little Red?” Mireya asked with a smirk.

“I’m Blues.”

“…You sure you’re not called Reds?”

The android furrowed his brow behind his visor. “It’s a genre of music that my creators enjoyed.”

“Creators?”

“I’m a robot… it’s a long story.”

The half-night elf grinned. “Well we’ve got a lot of time between now and the gate.” With that, the two started their trek back toward the entrance of the Tangled Green.

***

Time had slipped by without either traveler really paying much attention to it, and while neither bothered to say it out loud, they had appreciated the other’s presence. For Mireya, the robot allowed her to get some of the best night’s worth of sleep she’d had since her last failed attempt to integrate into Camelot society. On the other hand, Proto Man found himself not having to neurotically glance to his peripherals as they crept along.

Over time, the tropical jungles of the ‘outer Green’ had given way to the temperate forests of the interior. Once they were back over the Animus River, Mireya started to discuss the various quirks of the forest, highlighting all the animal and plant species that populated each particular stretch of woods. From the rambling manner in which she discussed things, it became quite apparent she probably hadn’t spoken with another individual in quite some time. While her tales of forestry and animal husbandry were quite interesting, her accounts of the various societies in the outskirts of Camelot left Proto Man with a scowl. He knew that people could be terrible, but he figured that sort of xenophobia wouldn’t exist in the Omniverse, where everyone is technically and immigrant.

“How much longer?” Mireya inquired as the pair crested over a small hill and glanced down through a thinner patch of oak trees. “We’re only a few miles away from the Nexus gate.”

“It’s down there,” Proto Man muttered as his internal display focused him on a particularly tall tree. The fleeting happiness he’d accumulated on their trek through the Green withered away as he drew closer to the final cache. Glancing down at the severed limb still cradled in his arm, the robot was once again forced to wonder what awaited him.

“So you said this was your brother who left these recordings?” Mireya asked as the two made their way over to the tree.

“More like a half-brother, I suppose,” Proto Man replied.

“He’s one of… Doctor Wily’s creations?”

“Correct,” the machine responded, eliciting a grin from the biracial woman. “You think he’s still alive?”

“I hope not.”

The two carried on in silence until Proto Man reached the tree that housed the puck. There was no elaborate hatch. Instead, someone had torn their way into the pulp and jammed the tiny piece of technology inside. With a frown, the android plucked it out from its resting place, brushed it clean, and activated the holographic record. After a slight pause, a grainy image of Wood Man’s upper body appeared.

“End of the road,” the sylvan machine wheezed as he scratched as his ashen flesh. His eyes glowed with a faint red as he scanned his surroundings. “My data has been properly squirreled away, and this will be the last th…” He sagged forward for a few moments before lifting his head back up. “How… how do humans tolerate pain? Fear? How do they handle any of it? I’d give anything to go back to that empty shell of existence I was when I had Wily feeding orders into my brain.

“…anything.” Wood Man slumped forward for nearly a minute before popping back to his senses with a weak gasp. The robot picked up the recording device and walked it over to what was undoubtedly the same tree Proto Man now sat in front of. He jammed it into the heart of the tree but failed to cut the feed. The sylvan machine turned around and made it all of two steps before collapsing to the ground. The feed continued that way for close to five minutes until Wood Man’s still form started to convulse.

When he rose to the ground, the android on film turned around only once. All that remained of his eyes were burning red orbs, and the expression on his gray visage conveyed nothing but rage and malice.

Proto Man reached out and deactivated the puck. Once he had it tucked into his pouch with the others, he turned to look up at his elven companion. “Do you think you could track him?”

The night elf shook her head. “I can try, but I doubt it. How old do you think that recording was? Over a month? The tracks would probably be long dead by now.”

Before the robot could open his mouth to offer a rebuttal, the two were torn away from their conversation by the sound of a nearby tree toppling over. Both turned just in time to see a battered Snake Man come stumbling out of the woods. Proto Man had been acquainted with the ‘old’ and the new Snake Man, and neither of those iterations of the serpentine android had displayed anything like the mask of horror and confusion that the red android now saw.

“Fall back!” He screamed as the tree line behind him tore apart.

[Proto Man]

From the woods behind Snake Man, a beast emerged that caused Proto Man’s metaphorical blood to run cold.

At nearly eight feet tall, the darkspawn towered over the three individuals now assembled in the forest clearing. In place of traditional limbs, it had clusters of interlaced, root-like tendrils adorned with barbs. Its chest, disproportionately small, was shaped like a barrel and made of a worn material with the appearance of a tree log. The monster’s long neck had the appearance of its limbs and was nearly as long as well.

Most unsettling of all was the fact that the creature had once been Wood Man. That much could be seen in the fact that the android’s head, undersized like the darkspawn’s body, glared from the end of its twisting, vine-like neck. As it cleared the tree line, the haunting behemoth set its burning red eyes on the three individuals who were slowly backing away from it. Its dried lips curled back to reveal a mouthful of yellowed fangs that dripped black ichor.

“We have to run,” Snake Man rasped as he grasped his robotic sibling by the wrist. With a glare beneath his face, the red machine wrenched his hand free.

“No.” He shouted as the Proto Buster whirred to life. “You want to leave him like this? Would you want me to leave you like this? A corrupt monstrosity?” The android shook his head. “I couldn’t live with myself if I just away and let this creature continue walk away wearing Wood Man’s face.”

“I fight,” Mireya replied as she drew her bow and nocked and arrow. She pulled the string and readied her aim as Snake Man begrudgingly weighed his options.

After a beat, the serpentine machine relented. “I don’t intend to die because of your morals, Prodigal.” Snake Man responded as his own buster arm activated around his right hand.

The Wood Man creature, perhaps realizing the intent of the gathered trio, let out a roar that shook the leaves of the surrounding trees. It then came stampeding at its adversaries. Even before it had made the first step, it had to contend with arrows and Search Snakes, which threw themselves at it as quickly as their owners could fire them. Backing up behind his partners, Proto Man hoisted his trembling Proto Buster and bit his lower lip as he waited for the moment to fire the shot.

“Finish Buster!” With a loud whoosh, the super-charged blast erupted from the barrel of the weapon and slammed into the darkspawn’s undersized chest. The force of the impact was enough to not only stop the monster in its tracks but also cause it to reel backward. Proto Man shot a glance down at his feet and saw that he’d even been driven back and down into the earth as well. But despite the power of the attack, the beast didn’t topple into a screaming heap or collapse into a limp pile.

Instead, the cybernetic darkspawn paused just long enough to glare down at its scorched chest before lurching forward. It lashed out with its arm of interwoven tendrils, which separated as the defenders tried to pull back. Proto Man saw a flash of black before he was scooped off the ground and thrown backwards and up off his feet. His flight ended when he slammed into a tree and crushed it beneath his inertia. A beat later, the dazed preteen watched Snake Man slam into the ground a few yards away from him.

Dodging the sweeping attack with a graceful backflip, Mireya slipped her bow over her shoulder and drew her spear. She tightened her pale hands around the wood and braced herself as the monster set its sights solely upon her. Its burning eyes narrowed as it swung its frayed limb at her a second time, and this time, she was more than happy to roll away from the attack. Unlike the first time, she went forward instead of backwards, and when she popped up in front of the darkspawn, she drove her spear at the center of its chest. The harden obsidian struck home, but much to the chagrin of the hunter, the tip failed to bite into whatever material comprised Wood Man’s shell. A beat later, the monster lashed out with its right arm and closed its tendrils around her chest and arms.

“Faa—!” Mireya screamed as the vines constricted around her. She tried to thrash her way free, but the strength of the tendrils was too much.