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Roll woke up from her dream. It wasn’t the weird hell dream like the one she had yesterday. It was a more typical dream, you know, the kind where you imagine yourself as a T-Shirt in a laundry basket, before being thrown into the laundry machine by yourself, & get tumbled around for a bit. Oh to be a T-Shirt in a laundry machine! Now, about time to pull out that blowtorch & heat up that garlic bread she’d been keeping under the pillow-
“WARNING: ENERGY LEVELS CRITICAL! ESTIMATED TIME TO DEPLETION: [12] MINUTES!”
The fuck!?!?!? Why was she running out of power? She drank so many E-Tanks last night! Then the reason slapped her in the face like a brick. Tango had thrown some kind of brochure at her, & gestured to her to read it.
“-Emergency Energy Core… 72 hours of battery charge*... *Battery life may vary depending on energy exerted by the user- Why am I running off an emergency power source- what even happened last night????” Roll tried desperately to remember what happened yesterday, but all that she remembered was that she got into an argument with Janet, blacked out & went to hell for a few hours, & threw Forte off a building. Beyond that she couldn’t remember a thing.
Then Tango pulled out a flash drive from under her pillow, & everything started to make sense. Roll didn’t know exactly what happened, but she really didn’t have the time to find out.
“ESTIMATED BATTERY CHARGE: [10] MINUTES. REPLACE ENERGY CORE IMMEDIATELY!”
Roll jumped out of bed & rushed her way into the workshop where Dr.Light had been working. She dove into the drawers trying to find a spare solar core anywhere. Roll looked as hard as she could, but could not find it anywhere. Then her eyes turned to her dad’s latest project: A large, muscular robot sat motionless on the workbench where her dad had laboured away for the past year or so. Perhaps he would know where it was. Roll opened up the internals of the robot, & flicked on the power switch, bringing the creation to life.”
“*Yawn* Good morning Dr… oh, hello?” He greeted awkwardly, not sure who this girl standing next to him was.
“Yeah, hi. Listen, I’m about 8 minutes away from powering down & I really need help looking for an energy core right now.”
“Woah, that sounds like an emergency! If you need one installed, the emergency ones are in the red cabinet over there.” He said, motioning toward a cabinet labeled ‘EMERGENCY”.
“No, I’m not in that much danger, I need a permanent one. You know, the kind every other robot has?”
“Well technically no energy core is permanent, it’s recommended that you change them out every 2-4 years.”
“WILL YOU STOP BEING A SMART ASS FOR SEVEN MINUTES & TELL ME WHERE THEY KEEP THE SOLAR ONES?”
“Okay okay, no need to yell. They’re in the other cabinet over there.” gesturing to the blue cabinet next to the first one labeled “Regular Energy Cores.”.
“Thanks.” Roll ran over & grabbed one of the energy cores from the cabinets shelves. She then opened up her chest cavity & tried to replace the core herself, but found it very awkward to do without a mirror. “Ugh, why did they have to make it so hard to do maintenance on yourself? I know I’ve got a warranty, but- Hey, can you help me out with this?”
“Huh? But I- uh…”
“What, you’re nervous to do this because I’m a girl?”
“What does you being a girl have to do with this?”
“Well- Look, can you do this or not?”
“I mean, probably, if you hold up the instructions for me.”
“Okay, here look at this.” she said, holding up the instructional brochure from earlier, “It’s not the same kind of Energy Core, but it should be similar enough.”
“O-Okay… I guess.” The blue robot fiddled with the tools Roll gave him. His arms had an awkward yet fluid motion to them, almost as if he was completely human, but somewhat stiff enough to give away his artificial being to an observant individual. He first removed the connecting wires from the core & into the internal power station.
“WARNING: ENERGY CORE DISCONNECTED. RESERVE POWER AVAILABLE FOR: [5] MINUTES.”
“Oh dear. Should you be awake for this?”
“Shut up & do your job already!”
“Okay, I’ll stop.” He then unscrewed the core from her chest, & replaced it with the solar core Roll had gotten from earlier.
“POWER DOWN IN: [3] MINUTES.”
“COME ON, FASTER!”
“I’m going as fast as I can! I’ve never done something like this before.”
He then screwed in the solar core, & reconnected the wires from earlier.
“Energy Core detected. Power levels returning to normal levels.”
“Finally. Took you long enough.”
“Well it was hard to follow all the instructions in reverse.”
“...What?”
“Well it’s to replace a damaged core with the emergency kind, so I did it in reverse order, sans the damaged core part.”
“...You know what, forget it. At least you managed to stop me from dying.” Roll said, sealing her chest & putting her shirt back on.
“No problem! I don’t think we’ve properly introduced each other yet. Dr. Light calls me Mega Man X, but you can just call me X.”
“Okay, hi X, I’m Roll. So, you’re my brother's replacement my dad’s been working on?”
“Replacement?”
“Well, I guess that’s not exactly the right word. See, my brother has been working two jobs for a while now. The first is as Dr. Lights lab assistant.”
“Oh. I take it that Dr. Light is your father figure of sorts.”
“Yeah. & his other job is fighting this mad scientist guy who shows up about every 4-6 months.”
“Oh, so he’s like a superhero?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. But see, he’s kind of been thinking about quitting the superhero thing & going back to being our dad’s assistant full time, but then we wouldn't really have anyone to keep the peace around here, you know?”
“So that’s where I come in?”
“Yeah, but I don’t really see the point of making more robots to do a simple job. No offense, but I think it would be less trouble to everyone to go with a more, permanent solution.”
“Permanent?”
“Well, how do I phrase this? You see, this guy keeps making a mess out of everything, & every time my brother has to clean up after him, but he never really stops him from messing things up in the first place.”
“So, you want him to stop forever?”
“Yeah, just go over to his house & just, do him in.”
“Oh, well that doesn’t sound very nice.”
“Well I don’t mean like that. More like, when there’s a piece of rotten food you gotta throw it out, ‘cuz otherwise it sticks up the place, & the bacteria gets everywhere.”
“It still sounds like you plan on breaking the law. Why not put him in jail?”
“No, we already tried that, but he broke out. This guy is like a rat, you can’t really get rid of him peacefully, you gotta do it the hard way. Though I personally find it quite easy, compared to the roaches.”
“That still doesn’t sound good.”
“Yeah, well luckily for him, we’re not allowed to just kill him, it’s against the first law of robotics, see?”
“The laws of robotics? What are those?”
Roll immediately burst out laughing “PFFFFFFFFF! Oh my god, you’re telling me, that you don’t know ABOUT THE LAWS OF ROBOTICS? HAHAHAHA! Holy [$@!^], I can’t believe they actually let him do it!!!! You know what this means????”
“Uh… Should I?” X asked awkwardly, as it seemed the girl beneath him had gone laughing mad. Almost to the brink of tears.
“HAHAHAHA, it means that you can go over to Wily’s house, &- &- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-”
“Hey, what the hell are you two talking about?” It was… Rock!
“Rock? How did you hear us, this is a soundproof room?” Roll asked, shocked.
“Yeah, this room. You know you're not supposed to be in here without permission.” aw dang, he must have heard her stomping out of her room down here.
“Oh, you must be Mega Man. Me & your sister were talking about permanent solutions to your mad scientist problem.”
“...Roll?”
“Rock I swear it’s not what it sounds like.” It’s worse.
“Roll, you’re not thinking of, killing Wily, are you?”
“Oh come on, we both know it would be the easier option for everyone.”
“Yeah, & sometimes the easier option is the one that leaves everyone worse off.”
“Really, all you have to do is shoot him once & you can go back to being all kissy with Kalinka, or whatever it is people in love do.”
“For [fricks] sake, Roll I can’t just-”
“Uh, excuse me, who’s Kalinka?”
“Not now X, the adults are talking. Rock, you had a perfectly good chance to end this like 4 years ago, you could have just taken the shot & it would have all been over!”
“Yeah, & 4 years ago you weren’t a deranged alcoholic who beats the crap out of her friends over one bad Costco trip.”
“W- What? How do you know that?”
“Don’t think that because dad doesn’t watch the news doesn’t mean I do. & how do you know that?” Rock asked, holding Tango by the tail, who had the flash drive from earlier in his mouth.
“Hey, put him down, you’re hurting him!”
“Roll, if you really have been uploading all your incriminating memories into this flash drive, which I don’t doubt, how do you have the faintest idea of what I’m talking about?”
“W-Well, uhhh… X, help me out here?”
“Hey I just learned who you two are, I can’t expect to get between your arguments.”
“Roll, we're more than just robots, & that’s the thing. We have to work under two standards at once, & if that goes wrong, then things are gonna get even messier than they already are.”
“Yeah, but maybe no one will care. It’s not like anyone’s gonna miss him when he’s gone. Besides, if you do, you can go back to your regular job helping dad!”
“For gods sake Roll, we’re literally building X over there just so I can do that. You know what, I’m taking this to dad, & you’re gonna confess everything you’ve been up to for the past 4 years.”
Aw crap, now he’s gonna tell Dr. Light everything. Quickly, think of a distraction before something bad happens!
“Rock wait- look over there, it’s a cow riding a skateboard!”
“...Roll I’m not as stupid as you are, I can clearly see you holding your broom behind your back-”
WHACK
Rock was out cold on the laboratory floor. Tango dropped down onto his feet, & dropped the flash drive into Roll’s hand.
“Oh! Is he okay?” X asked?
“Don’t worry, he’ll be awake in a few minutes.”
“I take it that you don’t want Dr. Light to know about something.”
"Well, he can be a bit douchie at times, but anyone would be shocked if they found out their daughter was a wanted criminal. I know you’re not gonna tell him though, you seem like a trustworthy guy. Besides, none of us are going to remember what just happened in a few minutes!” Roll said in a deceptively cheerful tone, while extracting the recording of what just happened out of Rocks memory & into the flash drive. “You go to sleep buddy, it’ll all make sense in a bit!” She said, climbing onto X, reaching for the power switch.
“Okay, I guess.”
Roll turned X off, & pulled out all the memories of this morning. She then carried Rock on her shoulder & went back up stairs, but quieter this time. She went into Rock's room & tucked him into bed, then rolled him around a bit, to simulate him tossing & turning.
Finally, she went back into her room, & stuck the flash drive into his mouth, removing all of that morning's data, though he did not appreciate it. She then stuck the flash drive into her own brain, & removed all her memories of the encounter, before sticking it under the pillow.
“Nobody has to know. No one else needs to know.”
Now, about that garlic bread!