Chapter Text
It'd taken some effort, but Bass was finally on his way to face Dr. Wily.
He was lucky, too. Shaking Duo had been hard enough, but he wouldn't have had a chance if Proto Man was still around. The only reason he was dealing with the one and not the other was because Proto Man had left to help his brother. All Bass' insisting that 'I don't "join forces" with anyone' and 'get lost, I fight alone' had been summarily ignored.
Annoying do-gooders and their stupid ideas about teamwork.
He needed to deal with Wily on his own. Those losers would only hold him back, or worse, try to whisk the mad scientist off to jail. He hit the switch for the door, strolled in, and aimed his cannon on the figure at the computer console. "Wily, you backstabbing, double-cross—"
At the same time, Roll turned and grinned. "Rock! Thank you for helping—"
Both of their faces' fell instantly. Bass cautiously lowered his cannon, and Roll's shoulders sagged as she took a half step away from the computer.
"Bass? Did you… come here to save me?"
"I was looking for Wily."
They stared at each other for a moment, and then a small smile crept across Roll's lips. "Oh, that makes so much more sense!"
"Yeah, I think the others were trying to— ugh, crap. That means they must have found him instead."
"And you found me."
Her smile grew. Infectious, annoying, just like Mega Man's. Bass scowled. He'd always hated how human the Light 'bots behaved, especially the first three. How aggressively they emoted. How demonstrative they were. Most of all he hated how closely Wily had copied that when he was built; he couldn't shut it off.
He glanced pointedly at the cell— door ajar, the lock mysteriously broken— then back at her.
"Well, it looks like you were doing just fine on your own, so I'm going to see if I can stop Mega Man before—"
"Wait." She studied him for a moment. "I can't… I, um, don't have a teleporter equipped, and it's not like I can fight my way out of here. I was looking for other options when you showed up."
He groaned, facepalming, before finally shrugging in defeat. "Fine. Fine. I'll take you home. Whatever."
Only she was still watching him. Focused. Cautious.
"I can trust you, right?"
"I— what? You— you're the one who— you asked for my help!" At first he sputtered in annoyance. What was with this robot? Then he waved dismissively. "Look, this is a waste of my time. I'm not here to 'help people' like your dumb brothers are, I'm here to teach Wily a lesson. The only reason I'm willing to help now is 'cause kidnapping a non-combat robot is low, even for him." Besides, she hadn't asked for this. She wasn't like Mega Man, sticking her nose where it didn't belong. "So, fine. I'll run you back. No tricks, no schemes, no strings attached."
Roll tilted her head slightly. "The last time we met, you were pretending to be Rock's friend, before wrecking Dr. Light's lab—"
"Oh, come on."
"— and this isn't the first time Dr. Wily's done this kind of thing. He kidnapped Dr. Cossack's daughter, Kalinka, to force him to reprogram his Robot Masters for—"
"Look, do you want to get out of here or don't you!?"
"Can I trust you?" she asked again.
"Yes! Sheesh!"
Then her expression changed to one that could best be described as mischievous. Rushing over, she grabbed his hand. Bass yanked it away, only for Roll to latch on to his upper arm and drag him towards the computer.
"Check it out. I couldn't find an escape, but I did find this," she gestured excitedly at the monitor, "it's an unused buster cannon upgrade."
Bass quickly reviewed the coding, his frown deepening. "Wily!" Then he jerked free from Roll's grip, shooting her a questioning look. "Why show me this? Why not save it for Mega Dork?"
"It doesn't look like it's compatible with his cannon. Besides…" She hesitated. "Like it or not, I think Rock's right about you."
"He's wrong. He's dead wrong."
"He's a good judge of character."
"He's an optimistic moron who thinks there's good in everyone. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: there's no good in me. Not even a little."
Roll arched an eyebrow, bringing a curled finger up to her lips. "Oh, really? Because Duo said you wouldn't have survived the Dark Energy if—"
"Forget what Duo says, he's just as stupid as the rest of you morons." He pointed to the monitor. "Now, how about that upgrade?"
There was a vulnerability that came with software upgrades. It meant trusting that Roll hadn't bundled in some sort of malware before he arrived. It meant giving her access to his computer systems, and risking all the havoc she could cause in there if inclined. It meant he had to go into standby for a couple minutes and then do a soft restart, leaving him defenseless. At least with physical repairs and upgrades he could still fight, hand-to-hand if needed.
None of which Bass thought about until it was too late. He'd been caught up in the excitement of a new weapon upgrade, and the anger that Wily had hid this from him.
"All done," Roll said cheerfully.
"I'm just going to use this to defeat Mega Man," was his sullen reply.
"Of course."
"Don't patronize me."
She shook her head and quickly changed the subject. "Ready to go?"
Bass didn't respond, he grabbed her and teleported as close as he could to Light Labs.
"Thank you."
"No, don't. We're even."
"…Right. Even." She waved goodbye as she headed towards the laboratory.
"What did you do? What did you do!?"
Wily was stomping his feet and shaking his fist, and Bass found it pretty entertaining. He leaned casually against the computer console.
"I got the upgrade you tried to keep from me, stupid old man."
"Upgrade…? What upgrade?" Then a dawning horror clouded his features. "That— that wasn't for you! It was never for you, you fool! It's not— argh!" He looked frantically back at the computer screen. "No wonder your cannon is on the fritz. That so-called 'upgrade' conflicts with your original weaponry system. I'll have to roll it back."
"No! I just got it, and you want to take it away?" Bass took a large step back. "Don't you dare!"
Burying his face in his hand, Wily heaved the most exasperated sigh that Bass had ever heard.
"You can't— the compatibility problem—" He paused to give Bass a decidedly withering look. "It gives you rapid-fire ability, yes, but at the expense of charged blasts! Are you willing to sacrifice that?"
"I don't have to. You can fix the program."
"No, I can't just 'fix the program'. The best I can do is a patch to keep the accelerated shots consistently firing. Otherwise I'd have to write entirely new software from scratch, and frankly, you don't deserve it."
Bass was ready to argue… but decided that since he'd just fought Wily, (inadvertently) alongside Mega Man, Proto Man, and Duo, that Wily actually had a point. For once. Besides, he was the strongest robot on the planet, it wasn't liked he needed super-charged plasma anyway.
"Fine. But I'm keeping the upgrade," he told Wily. "It makes the base shot stronger, so the rapid-fire is better. I can land about three or four shots in the time it takes to charge one, and that ends up equaling the same amount of damage. This way I never have to break offense."
Wily looked surprised. "Huh." He shrugged. "Keep it, then."
She'd been in and out of the storage room all day, finishing up repairs on Proto Man while trying to avoid any suspicion from Dr. Light. Putting him back together without help from Dr. Light or Auto was difficult enough, and it seemed like every time she was close to wrapping up the work, Dr. Light would call her to grab a component for him, or Rock would pop into the lab for a quick fix or energy top off, or…
Proto Man was gone. Roll was disappointed, but hardly surprised. She knew he would take off the moment he could.
But she was not alone.
"Who's there?" That someone had broken in was bad. That they had a network signal blocker was worse. "Identify yourself!"
"Chill out, Roll," Bass said, stepping out from behind one of the shelving units. "Proto Man said I should… that you could…"
She approached before he finished, examining his damaged shoulder. "Must have been a lucky shot, I would've thought your armor would protect this joint." Then she glanced up at him. "Isn't this a job for Dr. Wily?"
"He went into hiding the moment King showed up. I haven't been able to reach him."
"Hmmm." Since she happened to have the necessary tools on hand, she gestured for him to lift his arm and went to work. "You didn't hear this from me, but Auto runs Light Lab's public repair shop in town. If you're able to bring him scrap from Wily— sorry, from King's robots, he can build you minor upgrades, shields, boosters, that kind of thing. Or you can trade for energy capsules. Just tell him that you get the 'Mega Man treatment', since you're helping Rock—"
"I'm not helping," he said firmly. "I'm protecting Wily's interests, and proving I'm better than this joker who has the nerve to call himself 'King'."
"Since when do you care about Wily's interests?" Roll winked to show she was teasing. "Speaking of upgrades, how is that cannon working for you?"
He laughed. "It overrode my plasma charging ability."
"Oh no! I'm sorry."
"Nah, it's fine. I like it better this way."
"Oh." She quickly finished the repairs in stilted silence. "There. Done. Now get out of here, you're not welcome in the lab."
"Like you could stop me if I really wanted to get in." Then he offered a slight nod. "Thanks."
"No need for thanks. Since the upgrade didn't work the way it was supposed to, well… now we're even."
Once he was gone, she hurried back into the lab proper to change the security code on their anti-teleportation forcefield.
Bass glanced around the dark room, and quietly studied Roll as she walked in and switched on the lights.
"Well?" He cut straight to the chase. "I can't believe I got a com message from you. What do you want, Roll?"
She held her hands up. "Rock told me what you said about Wily trying to reprogram you…"
"I never said that!" In an instant he was seething, then he sneered. "It's none of your business, and it— Mega Man had no right— It's not even true!"
She waited for him to calm down.
"If you want, I can check to make sure everything was restored. That he didn't leave any unwanted changes, things you might not be able to see yourself."
"No need, because it never happened, and—" He faltered. "You'd do that?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Roll laughed, gently.
"Because Rock and I… we were both designed for support. Built to help. Rock didn't want to fight, and neither did I, but both of us were willing to. If it hadn't been him, it'd be me."
For a moment Bass was taken aback. "I can't imagine fighting you, blondie."
"Rock helps people by protecting them. And I help by repairing." She smiled. Infectious, annoying, just like her brothers'. "You know you can trust me, right?"
"…Yeah."
Bass was very obviously uncomfortable, although he waited patiently without complaint, and Roll worked as quickly as she could.
"Okay, you're clean," she said finally. "According to your revision history logs, the only things he left from the last, um, 'update' were some codes to enhance processing performance and improve object tracking." Roll leaned back slightly and gave him a conspiratorial look. "I made some tweaks, you should be able to access those logs yourself now."
He looked away, apparently embarrassed. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Wily was relieved at first, barely glancing away from his work. "Ah, good, you're here. My robots were infected and escaped with the machinery needed to make the treatments! Can you believe it!? I thought I was going to have to— to— to turn to Dr. Light for help." He shuddered in disgust as he said the name. "But now you're back—"
His joy turned to terror when Bass grabbed his necktie.
"You're still going to Dr. Light."
"Wh-what? Why?"
"Because Roll caught your stupid 'roboenza' virus!"
He blinked in surprise, and tried— unsuccessfully— to pull his tie free from Bass' grip. "What's it matter to you?"
"After that idiotic kidnapping scheme, you promised you wouldn't hurt her."
"Why should you care? She's just a silly little housekeeping robot."
"Yeah, a silly housekeeping robot that I owe a favor to, no thanks to you! If you weren't such a treacherous slimeball who—"
"Look, it's a virus," he said, interrupting the rant before it could get out of hand. "It's not like I chose who it infects. It's out of my hands now, anyway." Wily dug around the pocket of his lab coat, pulling out a small hardware key resembling a pill. "Here, take this. It's a prototype, but it should prevent infection. I need you to go out and stop the Robot Masters that took my equipment—"
But Bass swatted his hand aside. "Oh, no you don't! You're taking this to Light Labs, getting on your knees and pleading for their help. You got yourself into this mess, you're going to have to dig your way out."
Grumbling, Wily dropped the 'pill' back into his pocket. "Ingrate."
"Creep."
"Pain in the… hmph." He could tell he wasn't going to win this one. With an angry snort and a deep scowl he grabbed information disks and printouts he needed, and headed for the door.
"Hang on." Bass crossed his arms and gave Wily a quick once over. "…Which Robot Masters?"
Wily chuckled as he shifted the load he was carrying, almost dropping the loose pile of papers. "I would suggest tracking down Pump Man first."
Much to his surprise, the temporary security code to Light Labs still worked.
"Bass! You're back!"
He groaned in disgust at Mega Man's— Rock's— entirely too chipper and enthusiastic greeting.
"Get your armor back on. Wily's sick as a dog." He couldn't help but smirk. "Looks like influenza, actually. They should be able to treat it in prison…"
Rock recalled his armor, looking confused but grateful as he took the coordinates and left. Bass did not follow.
"Was there something else we can help you with?" Dr. Light asked.
"…Is Roll okay?"
"You're welcome to ask her—"
"Of course I'm okay!" she called from the other room, then hurried over, bursting into a wide grin as she popped in the doorway. "Thank you!"
"Don't thank me. We're even now."
To that, Roll laughed. "Sure. Until next time."
"Till next time," Bass agreed.