PLDN Chapter 22

> Chapter 22: Gears of Fate Mini-Saga Followed By More Antics (Mostly) in Miranda City
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## Sub-Entry 211: "Gears of Fate, Part 1":

The Delorean reintegrated at the trainyard as the E.L.B. reintegrated and squealed to a stop.

"I think we've gotten this down to a science."

"Indeed, Commander."

We didn't have much time to converse further as someone was already waiting.

"Asriel!"

He was waving his arms rather frantically.

"Volt!  We've got a problem!"

Pit was with him.

I got the train back into the storage depot and I used the remote control to send the Delorean to UCIAT HQ's garage bay.

"What is the matter, Asriel-kun?"  Bunnie asked.

"Yeah, what's the haps?"  Violet joined us as our group assembled.

"It's Monsteropolis."

"My former N-Division partner's in trouble." Pit followed up.

I had a feeling at that moment.  A feeling we shouldn't have dismissed Wily's abandoned technology on the day we were helping Roll clean.

We got down there pretty quick; the whole team, including Pit and Asriel.

Dr. Light explained quickly.

"...so this Double Gear System.  Albert Wily refined it and is now using it to enhance the robots he stole from you."

"Precisely.   This research is very dangerous.  It puts a tremendous strain on robot systems--"

"And yet you installed it into your number one son--"  Violet interrupted before Bunnie smacked her upside the head.

"Do not be discourteous again."

"Yeah, blunt much?"  Mitzi scolded.

"No, Dr.  Light's right.  It's a risk I have to take."  Mega Man was already suited up.  "I can't let those robots run rampant.  I have to stop them before they cause any more damage."

"Speaking of which, we need a briefing on them, stat."  Sally crossed her arms.

Dr. Light called up the blueprints on his lab's mainframe.

"First up is Block Man.  Desgined to specialize in building the outer walls of major projects.  He's always had a fascination with pyramids and temples of ancient times and aspired to build a structure comparable to them.  He's quite an energetic one and keeps his workers going at their top most capacity.  He...does have issues when they can't keep up with him."

"Lupe's taken the liberty of heading there already."

"Heh.  Imagine that.  Lupe outsped me."  Sally mused.

"Fuse Man was developed to manage and fine-tune power transformer stations. While he can handle incredible amounts of electrical energy, the fuses on his head are designed to blow should he be in danger of critical overload.  Rather dour and stoic, he prioritizes speed when confronting problems.  He's always on call 24/7 and only takes time out to care for a pet rabbit named Watt."

"I call dibs on the Power Plant, then."  I wagged my tail.

"Blast Man is a demolitions expert commissioned for movie pyrotechnics and theme park fireworks.  Before Wily got his hands on him, he was working on an explosion-themed attraction for Flower Land amusement park.  Curiously he enjoys writing to a magazine column called Boom Monthly."

"Any takers for this one?"

Pit and Asriel looked at each other.

"One of us will handle him."  Asriel volunteered.

"Acid Man is the latest in scientist robots for use in chemical plants; his accuracy with stoichiometry is unparalleled and his design allows him to swim thorugh chemical vats in order to check the compound mixes."

"Rotor's been deployed there to assist Rock upon arrival."

"Tunda Man.  A new automoton to come from my old collegue, Mikhail Cossack.  Desgined for land development and exploration in polar climates.  A long line in Ice Man's legacy of machine impervious to sub-zero climates.  His passion for ice-skating championships during the Olympics is what inspired him to modify his frame.   Currently residing in a museum of archaeology that's been frozen from a severe blizzard."

"I'll be happy to take that one."  Mitzi volunteered.

"Excellent.  Your Varia Belt is just the thing for it."

"Torch Man was built as a camping advisor specializing in fire safety.   He has...invented a new kind of martial art he calls Torch-jutsu.  Apparently it helps him keep his flames under control."

Violet rolled her eyes to Bunnie.

Bunnie sighed.  "Like you even need to ask."  She narrowed her gaze at Vi.

"Impact Man.  Actually mad of three separate robots--Kui-ichiro, Kui-jiro, and Kui-saburo.  Combined this construction support robot was built to work on the founderations of construction projects."

"That's a toughie.  Any takers?"

After a bit...

"I'll try it, big brother!"

"Are...you sure?  This might be a bit...heavy duty for you--"

"I can manage!"  Gadget assured.

Come on, Volt.  Let her prove herself.  But...I couldn't help but worry.

"Okay.  And finally Bounce Man.  A massive machine developed as a crash test robot.  His remarkable stretching and bouncing abilities howerver allowed him to become and instructor at the indoor atheltics facility, Boing-Boing Park."

"Aww...that one sounds more fun than Impact Man."  Gadget sulked.

"Not too late to trade off."  Asriel offered.

"You go ahead, Azzy."

"What?  Me fool around in a bouncy park?  Chara would tease me about being such a kid."

"Well--"

"But what she doesn't know.  Dibs!"

"Which leaves us all to regroup at wherever Wily's Fortress is."

"Let's do it, guys."

"Where to, Rock?"  Pit asked.

"I'll start with Block Man."

And so...

"...cool rainbow.  Too bad I can't sight-see."  Rock looked over the ancient temple and its surrounding atmosphere.  A sunny day.  Humid.  And yup.  A rainbow amonst the clusters of stone structure.  It seemed to resemble a Mayan pyramid but...there were things about it that weren't very...ancient.

"Mega Man!  Over here!"  Lupe beckoned, spear in hand.

"I fended off a number of servator machines.  Kind of...oblong-shaped with propellors on each end."

"That sounds like a cluster of Lyric robots.  I haven't seen those since the fifth war.  Wily must've gotten his hands on a shipment of mass production models."

"Come on.  Let's go."

"I know this will sound strange but if anything drops screws or bolts, save those."

"Of course.  I'm guessing they're valuable in some way?"

"Dr. Light can use them to recycle into power ups."  And so the robot and the wolf hybrid were off.  Lupe's collective of crossbow bolts was able to pierce most of the smaller enemies but she had to let Mega Man handle the stronger bots.

"You seem almost...at home here, Lupe."

"It reminds me of the temples that we makeshifted when the Wolf Tribe set up a temporary home in Vorostov's mountainous region.  We used out geomancy abilities to shape the surrounding caves into brick-like structures like this."

It was dark inside, fortunately Lupe's night vision could sense what Rock's optics could not.  It wouldn't be long before Wily's robots as well as a number of nasty traps forced the two of them into both defensive and offensive measures.

At the same time, Rotor was scouting around in the chemical plant, waiting for Lupe and Rock to finish their mission in the amazonian area.

"Oxygen supply is full and I'm ready to put my Hazard Suit to the test, everyone."

"Copy that, Rotor."  Asriel was first to answer.

"Progress on Block Man?"

"Lupe and Rock have encountered some heavy resistance.  Not to mention a lot of unexpected conveyor belts and sudden labyrinth block structures that dropped out of nowhere.  Also, Wily left a nasty miniboss that kind of reminds me of Big Pets."  I reported.

"Big Pets?"

"Castle Guardian from the fifth war.  Kinda like a totem pole in segments that can use its pieces to attack.  But this version seems to be able to drop its parts on its prey rather than just shoot them out like boomerangs."

"Diabolical.  Anyway...I'm going to check the chemical tanks.  Everything should be air tight.  I won't be in long; I need to conserve my oxygen."

"Roger, Rotor."  Asriel confirmed.

"We'll be standing by."

Back to Block Man's temple.

Lupe scowled at the murals etched into the walls.  They told a pretty obvious story of Block Man and his subordinates and many of the hazards that the two of them had survived up to this point.  But the real kicker was the depiction of Mega Man exploding into atoms before the might of Block Man, himself."

"How arrogant and presumptuous."  Lupe folded her ears back.

"Gotta admire his confidence."

Soon they reached the gates where Dr. Wily's logo could be seen above.  "We're here."

"Don't take any chances against him, Lupe.  You've proven yourself pretty well up to now but facing a robot master in battle is not something for humans and humanoids."

"I will not be a distraction."

Once inside, the robot master made his appearance.  Stout was the word.  Slate grey if not a little aquamarine while wrapped in grey bricks.  He looked like Stone Man's little brother by comparison.

"You're a few bricks short of a load!"  He taunted before running back and forth, stopping to use his Block Dropper.

Lupe stayed back while Block Man mostly ignored her; focusing on trying to crush the blue bomber.  All was going well for Rock until Block Man activated his Power Gear and had the biggest of growth spurts.

"Oh no.."  Lupe murmured as she looked at the massive stone titan that had formed from Block Man's transformed body.  The ground shook with each step and the room was chipped away with each swat and power punch.

"Element...THUNDER!"  Lupe drew her staff and pointed, the sonic explosion errupting across Block Man's core; akin to a bomb going off.  A couple of those had knocked him out of Power Gear as Mega Man climbed out of the rubble.

The robot master flailed before dropping like a ton of bricks.

"I owe you one!"

By this time Block Man's hurled blocks were coming in waves and hard to dodge.

"Speed Gear!"  Mega Man engaged the modification that Dr. Light had installed; the Double Gear system.  During this time he was moving so fast that neither Lupe nor Block Man could see anything but a blur.  When he had a good shot, he gear changed to Power Gear and unleashed all his Mega Buster could throw before the Double Gear system overheated.  But that was more than enough.

"DROPPED LIKE A HOT BRIIIIIIIICK!!!"  The robot master wailed before he exploded into atoms.

"That was...intense."  Lupe panted, stepping over the rubble.

With that Rock activated his copy ability and duplicated the Block Dropper.

"Lupe reporting in.  Block Man is destroyed.  Rock is headed to the chemical plant, now."

"Standing by, Lupe!  We'll beam you home, too."

And so while Lupe was being tended to by Roll for any minor injuries as well as some cleanup, Rock dropped in on Rotor, waiting in front of a sea of blue chemical.  Servator robots were walking about--resembling eyedroppers or turkey basters.  The bubbling green chemicals inside their glass pipes gave off toxic fumes.

"Rotor, is everything okay?"

"All systems nominal.  I'm ready to go for a swim when you are."

"Be careful.  If your suit gets compromised you have to abort and leave this to me."

"I've been a plumber for years.  I know when to get out of the sewer when it's too dank."  Rotor assured.  "Besides...I wasn't just an assistant to the Minister of Science in Ecotropia just in the field of electronics.  Chemistry was in the curriculum, too."

"Good to know."

And so the trek began.  It was an eerie place lit by ominous neon lightning from small rectangular lights.   It was also filled with black pipes, with small sections of clear piping to show the bubbling green acid pouring through it.  Computers monitored chemical mixtures.  Catwalks hovered only a couple feet above the chemical tanks.

As soon as the helper robots sensed Rotor and Rock's presence, they began firing acid in arcs.  And with each splash of acid that landed in the chemical tank, the contents below would change color...from blue to yellow to red...and finally to that bubbling green; which the two of them quickly saw how caustic it was when some of the nearbly robots sent by Acid Man had dropped in by chance and erroded away pretty quickly.

  "I've tested this suit to some pretty caustic conditions.  It withstood Muriatic Acid in pretty strong concentration."  Rotor dove into the vat and to his relief his haz mat suit was showing immunity to the concoction.

"Don't scare me like that!"  Rock gasped.

"I'll support you from below until we get to the submerged sections."

Ominous red emergency lighting glowed in the background.  Rotor was taken by surprise when he saw the robot master in question swim in an opposite glass chemical tank.  An exchange of game faces lasted only a moment.

Mega Man continued to fight on, taking on the servator and cleaning robots as well as the lab machines gone amuck while Rotor continued to navigate the underwater plumbling.  Their journey was slow going.

A nasty surprise was waiting for them in the form of the automaticed four-armed cleaning robot.

While Mega Man was at first distracted by its numerous attacks and minions, Rotor was able to surprise it with some of his customized weapons.  Once he managed to saw a couple limbs off with his "Pipe Cutter", Rock was able to switch to the Block Dropper and give it a nasty surprise while in Power Gear mode.

As the journey deeper into the factory continued, the hazards got more and more lethal.  Between the strong currents of the chemicals being piped through the channels and the carousel platforms, not to mention the rows and rows of very lethal death spike depth charges...it was touch and go for them until they finally reached the gates of Acid Man.

And sure enough the robot master was not happy to see Rotor again.  Less happy to see Mega Man.

Green in color, featuring a lot of see-through chemical piping and feet with impellor fans on the bottom.  His helmet almost resembled a drop of chemical, the way its transparent green form wrapped around his head in a curled tear-drop.  But that blaster of his.  It was dripping with caustic acid.

"You've ruined my latest concoction!"  The turned-evil mech bellowed with all the personality of a mad scientist."

"So you're the renegade machine from Mecha-chusetts Institute of Technology."

Rather than waste words...

"MELT!  MELT!"

"Whoah!"  Rotor dove into the vat as Mega Man scrambled on the catwalks.  His armor was already showing signs of corrosion from the trek through the plant.  Acid Man's attacks would surely breach it in enough concentrated attacks.

Mega Man fired back but his shots were nullified by the Acid Barrier.

"It's no good!  His defense is too high!"

Rotor surfaced.

"Hmm...I have an idea!  Have you ever heard of "acid blocks"?"

"Acid...what?"

"Compounds like high silica shale, red shale, carbon, or fireclay; fired at higher temperatures and used for conventional brick.  They can have an average compressive strength of over 23,000 PSI."

"Meaning?"

"I think if Block Dropper uses anything like that, it can break the Acid Barrier!"

"Worth a shot."  Mega Man switched weapons, his helmet gaining the Block Droppper modifications and his arm gaining the Block Dropper "glove".  And sure enough, the blocks materialized, fell and blasted the bubble of acid around hte robot master apart.

"That did the trick!  Don't give him a chance to recover!"

A second pile of falling blocks smashed his form savagely.  But that only made him lose his temper and break out the Speed Gear.  With that active, it was like he became a living tidal wave of acid.

"Whoah!  His pH just dropped like a rock.  That might actually eat through my suit!"  Rotor dove for cover, the wave just missing him.

Still not to be outdone, Rotor fired back with his various plumber tool weapons and managed to score a hit with the Pipe Cutter.

With toggling between Speed and Power Gear and use of hte Block Dropper however, it was Mega Man who landed the final blow.

"EXPERIMENT FAAAAAAAILED!"

A report in soon had Rotor and Rock getting mad props from goat son.

"Man, you guys are having all the fun!  I can't wait to join up with you."

"I promise I'll catch up to you in Bounce Man's lair."

"Actually..."  Asriel started.

## Sub-Entry 212: "Gears of Fate, Part 2":

"...huh.  Wasn't expecting the change of plans."  Mega Man beamed in just in time to meet up with Asriel, standing by with a hard hat helmet on and his NX weapon converted into a pick-axe and resting over his shoulder.

"I decided to be nice to Gadget and let her enjoy her time in Bounce Man's stage."

"Nice."  Mega Man smiled.

"So what made you choose Impact Man's stage next?"  Asriel asked, already knowing the answer, but wanting to test Rock's logic and deductive reasoning.

"It only makes sense something as hardy and industrial-grade as Impact Man could be brought down with acid.  His armor is pretty heavy metal compared to the others.  Acid would just run right off of Bounce Man and it doesn't really conduct electricity that well so shorting out Fuse Man doesn't seem likely.  And it'll just freeze against Tundra Man and evaporate against Torch Man.  WHich leaves Blast Man as highly unlikely as well."

"Smart thinking, Blue Bomber.  So.  You ready to get your hands dirty?"

"Absolutely.  But don't get too excited.  It's still a dangerous place to be in."

Impact Man's area resembled a minining facility deep in the earth.  Though in actuallity it was an abandoned construction zone deep within what would have been a future building's foundation.

Even from the lab computer's photo of him, Asriel could tell this was a unique one; colored half yellow and half orange with a lot of black.  Violet joked that he should have been called Autumn Man do to his color scheme.  While second only to Bounce Man in size, he was still a big one.  Each arm had not a hand...but an impact hammer's deadly spike.  Like the kind used to drive rivets through steel. The exhaust pipes on his shoulder suggested heavy construction equipment.  ANd even his helmet had a pile driver spike on top.

As they ventured deeper into the compound, taking out rogue portable electric generators, Metools, and Pick Men.

Of course things only got darker as they went further in, despite the artificial lighting.

"Hey, I read about these things."  Asriel hovered down on his NX Hoverboard, having converted it back.  "They were in Crash Man's area in the second war, right?"

"Yeah.  Updated versions of the Tronic Gliders."  Mega Man landed on one and let the track carry him around the circuit.

Asriel fired back at the robot traffic cones that launched part of themselves as homing missiles.

"Dr. Wily has weird taste in assigning robots to robot master lairs.  Some of these just don't fit the theme, y'know?"

Mega Man just shrugged.

The easy going didn't last long before they ran into the miniboss.  A robot piloting a mechanical digger with a backhoe.

"Look out!"  Asriel was quick to tackle Mega Man to the ground before the whole thing started spinning on its axis, trying to clobber them with the shovel weapon.

"Nice reflexes."

"Would you believe I trained in the simulator using a number of your old missions as training programs?  FYI, I might have set a new record for Quick Man's stage."

"Love to hear about it when we're in less danger.  How do we deal with this thing?"

"Well, Rotor says that Block Dropper is pretty powerful.  Why not see if it's like Horsehead from Hyrule?  Only vulnerable on one spot."  Asriel pointed to his noggin.

"Violet's got you researching our old N-Division days?  You might be better suited at this than I gave credit for."  Mega Man let the bricks rain down.  With the Power Gear engaged it wasn't even a contest.  After the explosion the main body of the whole thing dropped from where it had been blasted up.

"Nice."

As they continued onward, the two of them got to know each other better.

"...I can't believe you're still doing this after like...three decades!"  Asriel continued to follow on the NX Switchboard."

"I'm a robot.  I don't age."

"But Doctors Light and Wily do.  It's amazing they date all the way back to the Videoland Wars."

"Well, there's also the wonkiness of how time and space work on our world...but yeah.   Dr. Light does look good for his age.  And...I guess Wily's surprisingly spry for someone his age, too."

"So...you and Pit seem like you've gotten along pretty well.  How's...he been all that time we haven't seen each other?"

"Pit is Pit.  I think you know that better than anybody.  He's a great friend."

"So...what about you?"  Mega Man paused to use an E-Tank.

"Well, it's been a great six years since...but...honestly, I'm kinda concerned...I feel like...my old life is kind of...fading away.  And...while I know I wasn't destined for a good life there what with the world ending...I'm still not sure I'm comfortable with letting go of a place I barely remember...rather...I don't want to forget where I came from.  Because if I do--"

A moment of silence.

"I don't think you have anything to worry about.  You're not going to lose your way even if your memories of the past fade a little.  You know who you are and where you came from.  I think that's enough."

"Maybe.  But I--"

"LOOK OUT!"  This time it was Mega Man's turn to return the life-saving favor.

"What was...!"  Asriel noticed the self-propelled pile driver spike that almost pierced through him; just grazing over the both of them as it disappeared down the corridor.

"That was one of Impact Man's three parts."  Asriel got up and brushed himself off.  "Step lively.  He's attacking pre-emptively."

And for the rest of the journey it became a dance of avoiding the brothers three--Kui-ichiro (the oldest one, colored black), Kui-jiro (the middle child, colored yellow), and Kui-saburo (the youngest one, colored orange).

It only made it more perilious among the climb up rocky territory aboard the narrow Tronic Gliders with the three of them shooting past--up and down and in rising or falling angles.  Plus there was a bottomless pit to avoid as well as a bed of death spikes to watch out for.  Compounding all that were automated hot rivet driving bots, the Picket Men, the Metools, and more.

It got so clustered that Asriel got the idea to use Acid Barrier as a shield to block all the incoming shots.

And thanks to the W-Tank that Rock had bought from Dr. Light's thanks to the screws he and Lupe colleted, he had enough Acid Barrier once they charged through the gates.

"I like to spiiiiike!"  Came the Austrian accent of the heavy machine in question.  He wasted no time in charging the goat and the android with both spike hands in an attempt to impale.  And that was followed up with a coumple transformations, launching his individual components as missiles, transforming into a Y-shaped impact hammer that tried to box them both in with ground strikes, and stomping them with jump-presses.

"This guy's totally diesel!"  Asriel grrumbled as his weapons pinged off the awesome armor.

"Let me try!"  The Acid Barrier sure enough made his shell sizzle.  And the tide shifted...until the Power Gear was brought into play and it shifted back.

"HOLY SCHNIKEES!"  Asriel tumble-rolled to cover as the ground quaked.  Impact Man had transformed into a MASSIVE jackhammer machine and with each impact ground strike, the floor sizzled with hot spikey rivet before EXPLODING with kinetic energy.

"If THAT's how it's going to be!"  Asriel picked himself up and cycled through his NX JoyJon's features until he manged to find one of the weapons modules he had picked up from Sally--Acid Bubble.  And between him and Mega Man pelting the metal brute with caustic chemical, it wasn't long before...

"Tooooo spikeeeeeeeey!!!"  And then he blew up.

"So Pile Driver works like a jet-propelled spike strike.  Cooool."  Asriel admired Mega Man's new buster and helmet gear.

"THat could help you cross long distances, you know."

"I'll keep that in mind."  Mega Man gave a knuckle-bump.  "Thanks for the help, Azzy."

"Give Gadget my best."

And quickly, Mega Man was beamed out, took some downtime at Light's Lab to get upgrades and such from the doctor and Roll and Auto before he beamed to the next place in sequence--Bounce Man's athetic fitness park.

It was only fitting that he arrived to find Gadget already enjoying herself on the rubbery, springy, super-bouncy floors and walls.

"WHEEEEEEEEE!  This is so much fun!"

He almost didn't have the heart to snap her out of it and stop her fun.  But...there was a mission to complete.  According to Gadget's suggestion, a spike was just the thing to deflate a giant rubber balloon type robot master.

Incredibly colorful and full of brightness and jubilee.  The walls and floors were covered with almost like gum-ball shaped rubber balls.  Trampelines and catapults were assisted by stretchy rubber bands.  There were cargo strung up across the upper levels.  Glass walls in the upper decks overlooked a bright blue sky with clouds all about, giving a good sense of how high up this facility stretched...heh-heh...little pun there.

While there was some metal and mechanical framework and steel machinery in some parts, the rest of it however looked like it was made for a kindergarten; composed of triangular and square colored blocks.

"Having fun, Gadget?"

"I sure am!"

"Well, it's time to call it quits on the fooling around.  Duty calls."

"Yes sir, Mr. Mega Man!"

"Mister?  I'm probably a ten or eleven year old in terms of A.I."

"It's okay!  Age is just a number."  Somehow...that seemed like a response I'd expect from Gadget, who hit her 20's but still carried herself like a sweet 4 to 8 year old girl at times.

And so the bouncy trek of scaling the rubber fortress began.  With a lot of using elastic-assisted jumps and ricochets off of springy surfaces, the two of them enjoyed a fun romp through territory that was obviously designed with safety in mind.

Even with Dr. Wily's modifications and robots presenting real dangers, somehow luck was on their side.  Even the wall cannons, I'd recognized from Ring Man's stage from archival footage of the fourth war were missing by a mile.

All seemed fun and games...until the frog miniboss.

"YAH!"  Gadget stumbled backward.  Yeah.  Frogs kinda scared her.  Not as much as snakes or giant cats, but yeah...her mouse instincts reminded her that she was still very timid.

Mega Man kept shooting the swinging frog balloon miniboss unti he managed to defate it.  But among the minions it sent out, he found himself too distracted to stop the small bot that patched it up and re-inflated the frog with an air pump.

"It regenerates?!"  Mega Man was back to dodging again.  At least until.

"It's so mean!  I wish we could just pop it!"  Gadget covered her head and trembled.

"Wait...pop it!  Maybe we can!"  Mega Man fired up Pile Driver and pierced it with a charge!  It popped near instantly and before the pump robot could do its dirty work, a few Mega Busters put it out of commission.

Despite all that, it didn't take long for Gadget to be back to her spritely self.  Especially with the silliness of some of the obstacles presented...like the giant cartoon glove hands that flung them across large distances.

Higher and higher they went as the obstacles, while silly, still presented real dangers.  It seemed like all was going well until--

"Mega Man!"  Gadget stretched out her hand to try to catch his as he fell toward the bottomless pit.

"Oh no....!"  He cried.  As he started to disappear into the darkness below, something swoooped in and grabbed him.

"Beat?!"  Mega Man called out the name of his trusty robot bird.

"Guess again...old friend."

"Pit!"  Mega Man was overjoyed as Pit had grabbed both his hands and used the full power of his wings to pull Mega Man to safety.

"What are you doing here?"

"Saving you, old partner.  Dr. Light says that he's almost got Beat's modifications ready so he asked me to intervene in case you met with a nasty fall before then."

"You are a sight for sore circuits!"

Gadget giggled as she waved to Pit once she landed on solid ground.

After a few more close calls, the gates of Bounce Man finally awaited.  Through the gates they went only to come face to face with the biggest of the bunch.  Big.  Pink.  Round.  And just as bubbly a personality as Gadget.

"Oh boy!  A new playmate!"

He towered over them by leaps and bounds but he was incredibly lightweight despite his size.  But still...he was reprogrammed and just as dangerous as the others.

"I bet you can't bounce like this!"

And his floaty jump was able to propel him to almost the very ceiling itself.   Neither the mouse nor the mechanical man had time to admire because the spring-loaded punch came out of nowhere.

"Spike?"  Mega Man asked.

"Spike."  Gadget nodded.

And one well-placed Pile Driver later caused the giant robot to LITERALLY go to pieces; sending them all bouncing this way and that.  It wouldn't be until he reeassembled that he was vulnerable again.

But during the time he was bouncing all over the place it proved difficult for Mega Man to avoid the pieces without taking a few hard knocks.  A couple of these scatter attacks would be more than he could take.

Though she had the slower reflexes, Gadget had the idea to use her Reduction Belt and make herself a much smaller target.

And since she was able to slip between parts of the floor, any attacks headed her way ended up bouncing off the surrounding floor panels and such.  When he put himself back together, Gadget climbed out and resized back to normal.

"I'm going to get in some hits, too!   I want to make big brother proud of me!"  Gadget fit on her latest make-shifted gizmo onto her wrist.  It kinda reminded me of the Mighty Monarch's dart launchers...but that was from a nearly purple-level world that I'd have to censor if we ever ended up on there by chance.

It didn't take long for Mega Man to realize she had modified a nail gun into a wrist bracer to work like a machine pistol.  And the nails were just the thing to deflate Bounce Man.

"Ouchie!"

But that of course drove him into Speed Gear and the bounces became all but untrackable.

"We gotta find our rhythm!"

"One..."

"Two..."

"NOW!"

And synchronized attacks were all it took to land the final blow.

"Awww....playtime's over..."  Was the last thing Bounce Man said before he, too exploded.

Silence for a bit until Gadget was the first to speak up.

"That was the best-est ever!  Let's do it again!"

"Maybe another time..."  Mega Man rubbed the back of his helmet.

It was just as well.  I was standing by outside Fuse Man's power plan just as a nasty thunderstorm rolled in.  It was grey and dark and the lightning flashes were setting the mood.

But I'd have to wait for a bit for Mega Man to catch up to me.

It seemed Dr. Light had...some things to muddle over while pondering his past with Dr. Wily...

## Sub-Entry 213: "Gears of Fate, Part 3":

"...Doctor?"

"He's been like this for a bit, now."  Lupe shrugged as Asriel and Rotor looked on.

"Aww."  Gadget comforted.  "What's wrong?"

A sigh.  "The Double Gear System...  It was so very long ago...  It was on that day...Wily and I had our falling out.  He quite literally threw a wrench in our gears.   We were students then, each pursuing robotics research in our own way.  Each of us was passionate about forging the way ahead...to a future where humans and robots might live together in harmony."

Dr. Light's words...in a way...echoed Toriel's.  Interchanging robots with monsters, the same idealism...the same optimism was present.

As Light spun the tale of two equal and opposite researches, Asriel slowly began to understand their differences better.  ANd yet...he found them both equally relatable.  Robots with independant thought; only through this method could robots and humans be friends and equals.

And yet he couldn't dismiss the idea of instantly making any robot a hero.  While the idea of superiority over humans easily invited negative connotation, Wily did raise a valid point of not just creating artificial life that was equal...but better.  And if anyone understood heroes and superheroes, it was Azzy.

"However, I was strongly opposed to Wily's ideas and research..."  Dr. Light continued.  "The Double Gear system.  It puts an INCREDIBLE strain on the robots that use it...  And if it fell into the wrong hands it could be used to cause TERRIBLE harm..."

Light turned away.

"At the time a committee was convened, and Wily's research was canceled...in favor of my independant thought research.  Wily never forgave me.  And his views have grown ever more extreme since then..."

Asriel was starting to get misty-eyed.  After all this time, someone finally felt sorry for Dr. Wily besides Dr. Light.

"How ironic...  That my efforts to quench Wily's hotheadeness before it led him astray... only ended up fueling the fire."

In a way...Asriel could relate.  While Chara was indeed possessed by the Wraith, even way back when...Azzy's reluctance to go through with the plan, hoping to save their soul and stop them from going down a dark path and becoming...a not-better person...only succeeded in helping the Wraith drive a wedge between them and accelerating the Chara-Wraith's animosity.  Back then...it only made Asriel feel more like a traitor to the person he just couldn't let go of.

Maybe the same animosity was in Evil-Chara.

"Doctor...I never knew..."  Mega Man's words interrupted his thoughts.

While this explanation was going on, Auto and Roll were hiding behind the lab equipment, obviously listening in but too reluctant to reveal themselves or get involved.  Maybe it was best they said nothing.

Dr. Light looked up at the ceiling while keeping his arms behind his back, palm resting in palm.

"If only I'd shown him there was a way to work together...instead of just telling him he was wrong, we'd still be friends."

Asriel pondered this.  Maybe there was still good in Albert.

"A way...to work together..."  Mega Man pondered that, too.  He was looking down at the ground, not noticing Asriel's eyes were oscillating between green and cyan.

"Even the Double Gear System can be a tool used for good if used properly.  But using it properly requires proper judgement.  Wily's dream of any robot becoming a hero could become reality, if used by you.  I'm trusting you, Mega Man..."

While there was more to it, I'll have to trim the conversation short a bit and continue on with Dr. Light informing Rush had been given a tune-up and was now ready to use the Rush Jet again.

And so the two of them were off and just in time.  The storm at the power plant looked like it was getting worse.

"Sorry to keep you waiting."

Mega Man touched down where I was standing, outside the plant.  The high tension wire towers overlooked where they fed into the booster transformer station directly outside.  The ground was made up of sheet metal and giant bundled cables, with the occasional glowing spark gap.

"It's okay.  I learned to be patient in my immortal age.  C'mon.  The power plant's going haywire.  I think Fuse Man's up to something with the power grid."

And so we went in, I noticed a lot of the plant was made of green and grey machinery with pulsing cyan glow lights, flickering purple lamp strips,  red L.E.D. "zig-zap" stripes and more lights and display among the high-voltage equipment.  The far wall bore a logo bearing O.D.A. Electronics' insignea--an O with a plug-shaped D inside and an A within the D.

For some reason it made me think of the song, "Electricty" by O.M.D.  Well...not that much of a stretch.

No sooner had we set foot in, automated electrodes rolled across the glowing orange spark gaps and shot electricity straight down in a laser!

"Get behind me.  I'll draw the current away from you!"  I stepped under the path, attracting the voltage to me.  Oooh.  Tingly.

"You're a life-saver!"  Mega Man followed behind as I led the way deeper in.  But he couldn't rest on his laurels.  The senty robots were out in full force, the Electriri--floating cylinder-shaped residential transformer robots with googly eyes, wrapped completely in electric auras.  They were slow moving but the air around them would light Mega Man up like Time Square.

With skillful use of the Mega Buster he took them down as we pressed forward.

We also had to watch out for some of Wily's old headache-inducer drones--the BattonsAKA Bubble Bats.  Those black balls that hung upsidedown then suddenly dropped in on us that had been around since the second war.  And this was what...the eleventh, now?

Other nasties included quad-copter drones and more of those wall cannons.  Not to mention some nasty four-pronged electrodes that kept shooting electricty outward in pulses.

I busted out the twin plasma vulcans and evened the odds.

"Hey, those things are back from Stone Man's headquarters?"  I recognized the shielded turrets known as Tatepakkan.

Some platform jumping over highly electrified floors required use of the Speed Gear.  I had to admit, as a time-traveler, I hadn't seen much like this effect.  But nothing that Sally hadn't pulled off at top speed.

The maze of electrode lasers, cross-fire electrodes, and such forced us to stop and go at a careful pace.

After a slide down a tricky narrow hallway, we'd run face first into the chamber of the mini boss.  A nasty known as Dread Spark.  This giant,  red-tinted safety goggles-wearing, robot had a headband with a garland of chaser lightballs and mammoth-sized towering lightning arrester insulator stacks on top of its head.

But it was the bundles of cables coming out of the top of its head that gave it its name; implying dreadlocks.  Now that I thought about it...it DID kind of look Jamaican in appearance.  Nevertheless, the main distrubution robot was prepped to nuke us.

I diverted as much current as I could but the lasers and the drones were coming in complicated patterns and waves.

"What do we do?~

"You got a weapon that's heavily insulted?  Use that to break that thing."

"Insulated?  Like...?"  Then he remembered he had copied Bounce Ball the the previous robot master.

And one very chaotic cascade of bouncing hard rubber balls later...

The goggles shattered before the whole thing shut down and exploded, giving us access to the rest of the power plant.

"I know you can't can relate, but I am LOVING this outing."  I wagged by tail.

"It's just that the voltage is a bit...deadly to me, Commander Volt."

"Eh.  I get ya'."  I was too on cloud nine to really give it much thought.

Finally we reached Fuse Man's gates and he was in a cocky mood.

I had to admire his design.  Slender.  Gold yellow armor.  His arms and legs and collar had blue segmented bands.  The green orb on the left side of his chest crackled like a plasma ball.  And the giant fuse antenna on his head had glace walls and shar metal spike prongs on the end caps.  And the lightning bolts on top of his footpods were stylish.  I couldn't have designed better, myself.

"You've scrambled my electrons.  Prepare to di-ode."

Electric puns?  I'd been waiting this entire mission for those.

"Let's amp it up!"

I noticed the wall around us were chainlink fences with electric tracks running through them in a matrix.  And it didn't take long for me to realize they channeled his ScrambleThunder pretty well; the electric plasma sparks ran around them in synchronus chaser patterns.  Plus while that was going on, he was electromorphing and zapping himself all over the room at a pace that was too fast for Mega Man to keep up with.

It was even hard for me to keep up with, to be honest.  ANd he hadn't even activated the Speed Gear yet.

"Since it worked so well on Dread Spark..."  Mega Man unleashed the Bounce Balls, filling the room with ricochetting projectiles.  It of course made it that much harder for Fuse Man's arcs to get a clear path to us.

I continued to run interference, taking the worst of the jolts for Mega Man.

As soon as he activated the Speed Gear, I was taking jolts from all sides.  Mega Man had to use his own Speed Gear to keep up.

I didn't think it was possible but I think I was starting to get a bit tipsy from all the electricity I was soaking up.  Is this what it's like to binge on alcohol?   Eesh.  Lucky I wasn't in for a hangover when this supercharging wore off.

But unlike that pink drum-pounding rabbit in flip-flops, Fuse Man couldn't keep going and going and going...

"SHORT CIRCUUUUUUUUUUIT!!!!"

And boom.  One less robot master.  One more weapon to Rock's arsenal.

"I think I've had my fill."  I rubbed my belly like I was the prensence of a Vegetoid from the Underground.

"I guess.  That must've been several gigavolts."

"Actually charge is measured in columbs.  But the voltage was nice, too.  And pumped at a good current level.  Several thousand amps worth."

"You're losing me, Doctor."

"Sorry.  Electrician's force of habit."

It was just as well.  Rock was about to trade a werewolf partner for a mouse.

I had a feeling Rush would come in handy there.

So off to the frozen museum he went.   Mitzi was getting used to the ice by that point.  Not so much the cold thanks to the Varia Belt.  But more so...the slippery nature.  At one point she finall opted to use her Green Artifacts to put cleats on the soles of her sandals.

Speaking of, Mega Man had acquired plenty of upgrades from Dr. Light by then and he even included a traction amplifier akin to said cleats.

"Ready to go?"

"Ready to go, Mega."

"You...sure you're alright dressed in just that cheerleader outfit?"

"Positive.  This belt makes it possible to survive any extreme temperature."

The museum was exactly how I pictured it.  A museum with a cityscape; all encased in ice.  White and light blue-ish ice.  Signs of frozen shrubbery and trees outside.

Even the marble pillars of the outside entrance were wrapped in ice.  But once inside, everything just looked blue.  Cold blue.

The staircases the exhibits. All coated in ice with drifts of snow.

From above the snowflake-shaped security dropped upon the duo.

"There will be none of that."  Mitzi fired back with her Green Beams--her powers manefested as laser pistols.

"C'mon let's hurry."

And of course there was the other obvious hazard.  Death spikes.  Covering walls and dotted along the floors.  As if to taunt, the ice-covered obstacles shimmered in the light.

Up ladders, through narrows hallways and across platforms, led Mega Man and Mitzi to the upper levels.  And things only got worse.

Rolling blizzards were soon blowing them forward or backward depending on which section of the area they were in.  Robot rabbits bounded about, making things even harder.  Mitzi took them down with the Green Gatling while Mega Man alternated between Acid Barrier and Pile Driver.

As I suspected the Rush jet proved invaluable in this situation, allowing Mega Man to cross a lot of the lengthy gaps while Mitzi relied on her jet anklets to do the same.

With so much going on, neither of them really had a chance to converse.  At least not until later on, when they were back in quieter surroundings within the frozen musuem.  A lot of robot equivalents of dinosaur skeletons and ancient civilizations were on display.

"This is taking me back to the snow lodge promo Rolfe had us booked at."

"The one Pit says almost gave you and your band pneumonia?"

"The same.  While it did involve snow-skiing, I can't help but ponder about our opponent, Tundra Man.  Didn't you say he was an ice skater of some kind?"

"Well, he was built as a surveillance monitoring robot built by Cossack Robot Laboratories.  But his lonely life out in the North Pole found inspiration by watching olympic skaters.  Dr. Light says he modified his frame after that and spent years prefecting his ice-skating technique."

"It's making me all nostalgic for when we would take Asriel ice-skating during the winter."

"He seems like a good kid."  Mega Man cleared the way of the ice-dropping bird robots.

The further in they went, the more freezer equipment seemed to be modified into the walls and floors.  Spinning fans only blew more cold air out into an already frosty environment.

Sniper Joes bared the way but Mitzi's Green Mace soon knocked the shields out of their grasp, allowing Mega Man to do the rest.

Back to the upper levels, the support columns were lit up with yellow chaser light panels.  And the blizzards still kept going full tilt.

"Whoah.  Even with my Jet Anklets, it's hard to move in these windy blizzards."

"Be careful.  Death spikes ahead."

Back to the lower levels, a number of exhibits depicted...cave bots doing their thing as well as pottery under spot lights, and a quartet of 800 lb chariot wheels from various eras.

Of course there would be a nasty mini boss consisting of a wooly mammomth skeleton...robot atop a robotic gravity pedistal.  Mecha Mammostal was its name.

This boss required trial and error for both mouse and machine.  It wasn't until one of Mitzi's shots went wild and hit the pedistal robot between the eyes, that its weak spot was revealed.  And some pummeling with Scramble Thunder left it in pieces before it could drop stalagtites from the ceiling.

"Nice moves."  Mega Man returned to his default weapon.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."  Mitzi had gotten the idea to morph her weapon into something akind to a stun gun or stun rifle.  And retooling her photons to function as electrical static was new.

"It was completely by chance I guessed using electricity, but since you came from Fuse Man's place."

"I was just thinking the same.  You know it may be like an unintended Wily throw-back to Ice Man.  He was vulnerable to electricity.  You don't suppose...?"

"Well just have to see for ourselves."

By this time the territory had gotten even more hazardous and the final stretch consisted of jumps across some huge ice pillars with gaps between them.  Gaps leading to bottomless pits.

"Unless Pit is patrolling nearby, I don't think I should risk carrying you with my Jet Anklets' power."

"Agreed."

Still, with skillful use of the Rush Jet, Mega Man was able to collect some power items before landing at the gates.

Once inside, the form of Tundra Man arrived in dramagic flair, complete with bright spotlightsand the flourist of a gold medallist Olympic Skater.  Blue-purple armor.  A face plate that covered his mouth.  Assymetrical ice spires from his helmet, tilted toward the left.  Ice skates on his boots, and a long, rope ponytail made of ice.

"Care to dance?  Feel "freeze"!"  He taunted.  "I'm like a rose...ENCASED IN ICE!"  And before Mega Man could get his bearings, Tundra Man sped toward him in a spinning axle across the ice, slamming him into the gate.  MItzi got out of the way and reforged her weapon into the Green Tazer, giving him a quick jolt while his back was turned.

Tundra Man turned and counter attacked, launching into a number of fancy spins in the air followed be even fancier twists and turns on the ice, hoping to catch her off guard.

"I'm not falling for that!  I learned to ice skate in addition to snow skii during the infamous ski resort promo Rolfe booked us at!"

Mitzi reshaped her Green Items into ice skate blades and went on the defensive.  While not as fancy as her opponent, she had style and grace.  Not to mention a pair of Green Stormbolters in her grasp.  This was a new trick...separating her weapon to have four items active.  She wasn't our most experienced rookie...former-rookie for nothing.

This gave Mega Man a chance to get back in the game with use of Scramble Thunder.  The jolts raced across the floor and the ceiling, shooting straight into Tundra Man's very metal ice skate blades.

But as soon as the Speed Gear came out, Tundra Man's attacks became harder to dodge.  Especially when he unleashed the full fury of his Tundra Storm blizzard--a vortex cyclinder of icy cold wind currents that exploded outward in a shockwave that filled the room.

Mega Man took the brunt of it to protect Mitzi while she on the other hand followed up with a massive charge from her Green Scrambler--a weapon she just makeshifted from watching Mega Man's use of Fuse Man's weapon.

The ice robot went down hard with his final parting words "THE LAST...DAAAANCE...!!!"

One weapon assymilation later and the pair were off to Dr. Light's Lab.

## Sub-Entry 214: "Gears of Fate, Part 4":

While Rock and MItzi were in ice cold territory, I waited with the others who'd return to mobilize for the final assault on Wily's headquarters.  Even though we hadn't found it nor had Wily announced its presence, I know that he had yet another one of his skull castles ready and waiting.

Asriel took a moment to tend to everyone else who'd returned; treating injuries and swapping stories with how the missions had gone.  With six robot masters down, only two remained before Wily dared us to come after him.

With Goat Son occupied, I was able to get some distance from the group.  And for good reason.  Of all things to happen, I got a call from Dr. Alphys.  I excused myself, making the reasoning I wanted to clean up after being around the oily transformer station of Fuse Man's power plant.

I however snuck off to an unused sub-lab of Light's facility where I answered.

"Dr. Alphys.  Fancy hearing from you."

"Is this a bad time?"

"Not the best time but I can still talk for a bit.  What's up?  Anything wrong?"

"N-no.  Just..."

"Off on a cloud.  Feeling lonely and you haven't had contact with Undyne since the last time you had an anime and manga session.  Right?"

"Y-y-yeah.  I'm d-dumbfounded how you know m-me so w-well."

"You go through enough timelines of seeing the same events and meeting the same people in Undertale Prime Dimensions and you tend to learn a person inside and out."

"Undertale?"

"That's...what they call your world.  Because it's a tale of fantasy and it takes place underground Mount Ebott.  Y'know."

"I didn't even know our world had a name other than Earth."

"Well...it's an Earth-like world but generally it's called Undertale in the InfinityVerse's Axis of Realities.  Of course your Alternate Universe or...AU is an offshoot of the Prime Dimensions.  Like copies with variations but for the most composed almost entirely of the accepted "series canon"."

I wonder if I should be telling Alphys about all this meta info about their world.  But since she was starting to figure out how Determination worked and how it could be used by the human to reset timelines and reload instances that the game's "code" recorded at the "save file" 4-pointed stars...it was a matter of time before she would ask me about it.

"And there are other alternates?"

"Yeah...but you're probably not ready to know how they're different.  I mean...if you met your alternate self from USPR-001 or UFPR-013...yeah...you'd be a little beside yourself.  Literally.  Also I'm pretty sure it would be more of a mindblow than you could take.  Technically I shouldn't be researching them.  But...I'm going to have to some day."

"Incredible..."

"So...any sign of--"

"No.  No humans have come or gone.  You said that it was supposed to happen eight days since Sans last calibrated his..puzzles.  If you can call the crossword and mini jumble puzzles."

"He and his brother haven't used my random puzzle generator?"

"Well...that may be more info than you're ready to learn...yet."

"Oh.  Right.  Future.  Got it."

"The rest of the Underground?"

Alphys shook her head.  "Sorry.  No changes.  Everything's still the same.  Hope is...dwindling.  I've...logged an 8 percent increase in the number of times you and your team's names have come up in conversations."

"Alphys, you're not just recording things with cameras, are you?  You've got microphones set up, too?"

"W-w-well..."

I brushed it aside.  "No.  I have no right to criticize.  I've seen FAR, FAR worse security measures on my world."

"Speaking of which, I notice the laboratory you're in right now.  Is that your place?"

"No. We're off world.  THis is just a remote lab of the person who built Mettaton's new body."

"R-r-really?  That Dr. Light?"

"Yeah.  We're kinda in the middle of a mission, so--"

"Oh!  I d-didn't mean to hold you up.  I should let you g-g-get back to work.  And I r-really wanted to get a look at this human scientist friend of yours."

"Sorry, Alphys.  In time you will.  Just not until the Timeline runs its course.  Until we can come back and things stabliize between humans and monsters.  When...Asriel can come back home."

"I understand.  Well...good luck.  And...take care."

"It looks like you're taking better care as well, Alphys.  Continue to do so.  We all care about you, my friend."

"Okay.  B-B-Bye now."

It was that time that Mitzi and Rock arrived and Light made the necessary repairs.  It was just as well the others were starting to miss me.   Azzy joked that I must've fallen into the drain as long as I took.  I chuckled and brushed it off.

Bunnie tagged in--literally with a high-five--as she and Mitzi passed each other.

"Ready, Master Rabbotou?"

"Ready."

"We're going to Torch Man's camp ground."

That made Bunnie raise an eyebrow but otherwise it was a look of intrigue rather than dubiousness.  I think she might actually enjoy this mission.

And with a teleport both were off.

The campground was exactly what she was expecting.  Night time, lit by sparce owl robots with kerosene lantern bodies.

Crowded around a camperfire were Metools.  Some even with their hard hat helmets off.  Which...I had to admit looked like cannonballs with feet and eyes and a mouth in a perpetual whistling expression.

"Torch Man was a safety instructor here; much akin to that Smokey the Bear character on that one world Volt mentioned."

"Mnn."  Bunnie pondered as they continued down the pasth through the wooded area.  Tents were pitched everywhere with Wily's logo on them.  THe camp sign depicted the Metools with camp councilor hats on.

Piled of stones and rocks were encased in logs.  Totem poles sparcely lined the woods.  In the far background was a mountain range.

For the most part the two of them kept in silence.  Not much to say in the midst of battle.  Actions told all that needed to be known.

Bunnie and Rock cycled weapons as they mowed down the out of control robots.  Some resembling gas cooking stoves--when blasted with the right weapon their flames went out making it safe to use their heads as stepping platforms.

As the duo went deeper in, the smell of something burning became apparent.  Then it was confirmed with smoke, embers, and an omimous glow...as well as blowing air currents.

"This is no mere campfire.  We are in for something very threatening."  Bunnie narrowed her eyes.

Sure enough...

"Sixth sense.  RUN!"  Bunnie pushed him ahead as something roaring erupted behind them.

"SIZZLLING--!"  Rock started before he took off at a dead run away from the massive WALL of fire chasing them down.  It had to stretch well above the treetops and it was incinerating all in its path.

With skillful use of Rock's speed gear coupled with power gear assisted use of the right weapons, they just kept within a stone's throw away from the tongues of flame threatening to engulph them before they could dive into the next clearing, away from the path of the fire.

As the journey went on, sections were plunged into total darkness.

"Mega Man.  I believe Scramble Thunder would be ideal here.  Its electric plasma generates a lot of light."

"Good idea."

Bunnie's keen analytical skills were dead on.  And not a moment too soon.  One more step would have landed them down a bottomless pit.

Their progress was fast paced.

"Hmm?  Did you see the bushes shake just now?"  Mega Man asked as they crossed into a clearing overlooking the campfire dwelling Metools.  They were crowded around a massive tower of firewood in a pillar construction; housing the mother of all campfires.  The remained oblivious to the rabbit and the robot.  But said rabbit and robot were in for a surprise of a different and nastier kind.  A berserk robo-fowl going by the name of Sparky the Robot Turkey.  Yes, you read that right.

"Gah!!!"  It was hit and run tactics for a bit until Bunnie retaliated with Glacier Rusher.  Taking a cue from her, Mega Man finished it off with Tundra Storm in Power Gear mode.

"Huh...I've noticed almost every mini boss I've come across is usually weak to the weapon that its master is weak to.  For Dread Spark...Bounce Ball.  For Mecha-Mammostal...Scramble Thunder.  Even Cyclone W in the chemical plant was wiped out with Block Dropper."

"If ever a clear rule of the first rule of villainy."

"Huh?"

"Always have a weakness.  Or fate will make one for you.  If ever a warning against hubris that often goes ignored.  And when it's not it's used as a tool to manage liabilities."

"Sounds like you understand Dr. Wily's motivations on some level.  Is that why none of the robots he's made or stolen are ever more powerful than the rest?"

"Let's just say...they tend to be universal among people like him. "   Bunnie narrowed her eyes, thinking back to Vortex Labs.

"As for your question...yeah.  It's simple janken.  Rock beats scissors, scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock.  I suppose on a subconsious way it's a failsafe should any of his creations turn against him.  You've said some of them had changes of heart.  Like Ballade or King.  And in some cases like Bass, they just do what they want, correct?"

Well.  Seemed now was the time for opening up after the first half of the mission had been so introverse.

"Yeah...I wonder where he is right now?"

"Nor have I heard from your brother, Proto Man."

A moment of silence before the next hazard presented themselves.

A few more combinations of the previous enemies, two more instances of the walls of fire, and plenty more bottomless pits and firely traps.  Even a few surprises hidden in the Wily tents.

Finally it brought them to the gates of the main lodge.  Inside was completely empty and the floor was made of vented metal grates with boiling magma underneath.  Torch Man had his back to the two of them.  Greyish-white main body, arms and legs made of flexible sectioned bands, heavy red armor with cyan glass orbs on the chest, domed shoulder torches that were constantly ignited, and air vents on his feet.

"Perhaps you will be a challenge!"  He slipped into a martial artist stance.  "Prepare yourself to feel the heat!  TORCH-JUTSU!  FALL TO THE FIST OF FLAME!"

With a bevy of battlecries and karate yells, his punches ignited the air, sending wheels of flame around a fist-shaped aura in their direction.

Bunnie saw the moves practically telegraphed while Rock had to do some fancy dodging.  Bunnie barely had to move around to avoid the attacks, even nonchallantly stepping away from the point of impact from one of his firey jump kicks.

"Tundra Storm is probably his weakness if the turkey was any indication."  Mega Man cycled weapons and unleashed it, blowing out his torches and freezing some of his attacks in place.

"Feels like a throwback to Ice Man way back in the day."

Out of all of the fights, even when Torch Man activated the Power Gear and the temperature in the room skyrocketed from his sudden volcanic eruption of flames and such...his would be the shortest.  A mere three or four Tundra Storms at full power later...

"TORCH-JUTSU FOREVERRRRRRRRR!"

Bunnie was silent.  Then she smirked.  "This was a rather nice outing, Rock-kun.  We must do it again.'  She gave a formal bow moments before they were recalled to Light's Lab.

And that left the final robot master, Blast Man.  Biut what we didn't count on was...

"Hey ya, Blue Bomber.  You in for an explosive time in the old town tonight?"  Violet was already there, ready and waiting.

"Uh...Princess Violet?  This is still going to be a dangerous mission.  You should't take it so lightly."

"What?  And miss the chance to use all these bomb and explosive puns?  No way am I skipping out on that!  Besides.  Amusement park, baby!"

"Amusement park in ruins, remember?"

"Eh.  I'll be amused.  Let's go!"

I facepalmed while the others just shrugged or occupied themselves with getting ready for the final assault.

Once Violet and Rock landed, they were in for quite an experience.

"Blast Man Adventure?"  Mega Man looked at the mural in Blast Man's likeness overlooking the chain of rollercoaster cars on the track next to him and Vi.

"I hope it will be!  C'mon, Megs!  We're in for a booming good time!"  Violet dragged him by the arm.

"W-wait!  We don't have a plan or a strategy!"

"That's half the fun!"

It wasn't long before her recklessness paid off...that is if the goal was to have fun.  If the goal was to walk right into a trap, though--

"Whoah!  Laser triggers!  COOOL!"

"Get back!"  Mega Man shoved her forward as the crates of explosives started blasting in sequence, threatening to swallow them both up.

What ensued next was a race through a barrage of robots hauling Japanese firework containers, explosive mini-bots, Sniper Joes, and even some old headaches that, according to Mega Man, hadn't been seen since Flash Man's stage back in the second war.

All the while the upper levels overlooked a pretty realistic looking city-scape filled with more of Blast Man's rather vain promos...and wreckage of broken roller coaster tracks, roller coaster cars impaled through some of the buildings, and random buses and vans astrew all over.

Wouldn't you know it?  Some of the laser triggers caused the gas tanks of the buses to explove and shoot up in the air like rockets before falling back down in twisted, burning heaps.

"Kinda reminds me of mom's war games!"  Violet grinned as she hauled out the heavy ordinance--namely her Expendables-inspired heavy duty shotgun/assault rifle monstrosity simply named "Omaya Kaboom".  Only Vi would meet explosive ordinance with even more explosive ordinance.  I was almost certain she was using ammo made of depleted uranium.  Good grief.

As the went deeper into the park, it changed to a more warehouse-like setting with cardboard silhouettes of old timey gangsters right out of the Al Capone era, gang planks and catwalks, and evidence of old movie sets.

"This is my kind of place!  Explosive!"

"I suppose this is what Master Rabbotou means when she says you've been spending too much time with this Lucille person?"

"Ah, Lucy's good company.  Not my issue if she literally blows her top and craters a few places with those missiles she wears in her hair."

"...the what she wears in her WHAT?"  Rock's jaw dropped as he almost took a firebomb to the face before Violet picked up the spare.  "Focus, hero!  We're on a mission, ya know!"

Said mission eventually brought them to the gates of hte mini-bosses.  Combining a pair of rocket-propelled rollercoaster ships with a loop-de-loop track and filling then with explosive robot passengers was an obvious trademark of Blast Man and by extension, Dr. Wily.

The moment they started going, Mega Man and Violet were in for some constant dodging and jumping.

"Is it just me or are weapons not really making an impact?"

"Maybe we just gotta think outside the box!"  Mega Man switched to Blazing Torch and ignited some of the passengers that fell out, knocking them into the ships and causing big explosions.  And before long the blasts of the passengers had finished the miniboss itself off, allowing further entry into the lower areas.

More laser-tripwire explosives, more buses launched by explosions, and a lot of things going kaboom.

Violet was living dangerously and loving every minute of it, while dragging Mega Man along for the ride.

And before long after a climb up the catwalks and gangplanks, the gates to Blast Man's lair awaited.

Inside, Blast Man dropped in while the devastated wreckage of a giant Ferris Wheel lay off-kilter in the background.

"Retaliate or DETONATE!   What's wrong?  Don't be a DUD!"  He taunted.

Purple armor with red highlights and features and a crown-shaped protrosion like artificial hair.  It resembled a comic strip explosion the way it fanned out in its jagged apperance.

And that was when the jumping and bomb tossing began.

As Violet soon discovred, Chain Blast launched cluster bomb grenades.  The more grenades in a swarm, the more their explosions would fuse to make an even bigger blast.   As many as four made spherical explosions easily ten foot in diameter.

"EXPLOSION...IS ART!"

Okay so this guy was Bomb Man 2.0  Just as wild and crazy about blowing things up and just as party-centric.

While Mega Man tried to get his bearings to launch a counter attack, Violet just went all out crazy with any and all weapons out of her arsenal she could pull out.  Even the Vorostovian Quantum Disassembler was out in full force.

IT seemed like neither side was winning the battle until Mega Man picked up on a pattern from the past that seemed...more than a little coincidental.  Thunder Beam worked on Ice Man.  Ice Slasher worked on Fire Man.  And Fire Storm worked on Bomb Man...soooo...

"Blazing Torch it is--"

And the effect was instant.  Prematurely igniting Blast Man's explosives and roasting the bot himself threw a wrench in the gears, so to speak.  Even when the Power Gear came out and the robot and rabbit were dodging the equivalent of mini-nukes, the battle was already decided.

"MY LAAAAAST....BLAAAAAAAST!!!"

Boom goes the dynamite, so went the expression.

And with that, all of Dr. Light's robots, turned evil by Wily, were now in ruins.  All was left was the mad scientist himself.

"Well that was fun. So. Replication activation, blue buddy?"

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. Inside joke." Violet mused. "You might say a "Mini-Mega joke."

Rock rolled his eyes, not sure what she was talking about. I'd have to thwap her later.

## Sub-Entry 215: "Gears of Fate, Part 5":

And so...

"Auto, do you have any idea where Wily's gone to?"

With all of us gathered around Light's mainframe; Auto, Light's number one robot student and the big, beefy green support robot that handled a lot of spare parts and repair work behind the scence worked at the keyboard to try to triangulate Wily's position.

"Uhh...he's totally vanished, Mega Buddy!  Maybe he decided to turn tail and run!"

"Can't tell if that will make our job harder or easier."  Violet shrugged.

"The mission can't end until we bring Wily to justice."  Asriel scowled, his eyes turning yellow.

"Huh...?"  Auto looked confused.

"What is it?"  Pit asked.

That's when the mainframe screen, depicting all of the Robot Masters in a "stage select" (which, each of the mugshots had gone dark and colorless by this point) futzed up into TV static.

Auto worked frantically.

"What is it, Auto?"

"Uhh...there's someone hijacking our signal!"  He stammered.

"C-could it be?!"  Light's eyes widened.

And then we were "graced" with the presence of the man in question.

"Indeed it could!"  Albert Wily's voice rang out before his live video feed appeared.

"My genius never runs nor hides!"  He boasted angrilly.

"WHOAH!  There's a face only a mother could love.  Sally crossed her arms.

"Silence!"  Wily commanded.

"Since you asked so kindly, Baldy McNosehair."

I thought I heard Roll chortle a little.

"WILY!"  Mega Man snapped.

"Light!  And you, Mega Man!  How DARE you use MY Double Gear System?!"

"Oh and you installing the adapters for Mega Man and Rush into Bass and Treble wasn't stealing from Thomas?  I'd almost think there was hippocracy in the room."  I taunted, jabbing a sore spot.

"Then again you did always have a habit of taking what didn't belong to you and using it for your own purposes.  What DID happen to Gamma's scrap?  Cossack still ready to take a scimitar to your head if you come within 1000 yards of Kalinka again?  I know...let's ask the robot makers how they're coping with the robots that you took off their hands when you were posing as Mr. X. at the World's First Robot Fighting Tournament."

We could almost see the steam hissing out of Wily's ears at that point.

"Now you've crossed the line!  I'll turn you to scrap myself!  I'm at Point E168-55-78!  Come to my Gear Fortress.  I'll be waiting for you!"

The transmission cut out.

"Gear Fortress?  That's all we needed.  I'm heading out, Dr. Light!"

"Hmm.  It's time to finish this.  Good luck, Mega Man."  Light's tone was somber but steadfast.  It sounded like he accepted that this was the only way.  "It's up to you to stop Dr. Wily."

"Yes, sir!"

"You can do it, Mega Man!"  Auto added his voice to the mix.

"Mega...be careful out there."  Roll cautioned.

"Okay!"

"You won't be alone in this.  We're all going!  Ultra Crew Institute Action Team...ASSEMBLE!"

And so...at Gear Fortress...

There was Wily's escape capsule hovering ahead.

The top lifted off, revealing Wily himself.  A cackle of laughter with raised eyebrows and he was on his way to the top levels of the castle.

By now Wily Castles were a pretty common thing to find in the old archive data.  This latest one was as impressive as the rest.  What was the same was the ominous giant skull adorning the front.  The thing that stood out about this one over the others...was the near endless number of moving, turning, and meshing gears all over it.

Honestly...it looked a little steam punk.

Gadget clung to me from behind and shuddered.

"I've seen worse."  Sally crossed her arms.  "A lab is a lab is a lab."

Bunnie narrowed her eyes as she slipped her samurai sword out of its holder with her thumb as I'd seen done in many ninja and samurai tropes.

"I'm not afraid of a bully in a castle.  Bring it on."  Mitzi slammed her fist into her palm.

"We do this...together."  Asriel offered his hand.  Each of us overlapped a hand over top in a go-team-moment right out of a movie.   And then we charged the gates of the outer wall.

It was an impressive monstrosity.  As it turned out, the gears were more than just decorative.  In many instances, they proved to be the only platforms crossing large expanses of death traps, bottomless pits, and lots and lots of Wily's robots.

My electricity and plasma vulcans rained down Hell.  Bunnie used ever weapon in her arsonal.  Violet went nutso with her ordinance.

Mitzi and Gadget teamed up with use of photon weapons and makeshifted beams and blasters.

Sally and Lupe complimented each other with technology and nature; speed and power by their own rights.

Rotor stuck with Asriel for the time being; each using a hoverboard platform of some kind--be it Azzy's NX Switchboard or one of the Rider Boards Rotor still had from five years ago when we bee-lined to Lupe's nature preserve the day Asriel wandered off with Shi-Shi.

Which left Pit and Mega Man to team together.  Mega Man doing most of the heavy shooting and platforming, while Pit served as his air support and temporary Beat Call for those bottomless pits.

"That's it, team!  Pour it on!"

Wily had to be soiling himself over the small army we brought to his gates.  A small army that was overruning his larger army.

I noticed Gadget raiding as many loose gears as she could get her hands on.  More for the collection and more to spite Wily with.

"This might be the most fun I've had in a major outing, Mega Man!"  Azzy gave a thumbs-up.

This would definitely be one to tell Alphys some day.

I supposed we should have expected them by this point...but what's a Wily Castle without the dreaded Yoku Blocks.  Those disappearing/reappearing phase blocks that served as the most perilous of puzzle platforms and the bane of my existence.

"Oh HECK no!"  I growled.

"Eeeesh.  These things."  Asriel cringed.

After a few mistries by some of us, we all eventually got our way across the first set.  And then the second set.

One thing we'd learn the watch out for...rusted gears that dropped off their axles and into the abyss.  Nasty trap if you stood on them for too long.

Finally we got to the first guardian.  We were all feeling pretty confident, so many of us (especially Violet) believed there was nothing Wily could throw at us that we couldn't take.

This is where some of us would wish we had kept our big mouths shut...

"Oh no.  Oh no, no, no.  Oh HELL to the NO."  I recognized that roar.  That semblance of a word I could only pronounce as "BUMO!"

"He wouldn't.  He COULDN'T!"  I looked wildly around.

"What is it, Volt?"

"HIT THE DECK!"  I screamed as a Asriel ducked underneath a flying yellow...blobous by clearly squarish block of yellow amorphous liquid metal substance.  It landed in position in a matrix of what would be a hail storm of other yellow blocks like it.  And as each block fit together, it formed that shape.  That dreaded, famliar shape.

"Oh no...say it is't so..."  Mega Man looked aghast.

"I think I recognize this terrible beast..."  Pit covered his mouth.

"Big brother...?"  Gadget shuddered.

"We aren't afraid of you, whatever you are!"

"Yeah!  I hope you're strong!  I don't feel like beating up on a wimp.  Makes me feel like a bully.  And well...bullies really suck."  Sally cracked her knuckles.

As we all scattered, jumped, ducked, and got the Hell out of the way, the oddly-shapely yet polymorphic being took a definite form.

"Yellow Devil."  Mega Man glared as the last of it fit in place and its single cyclops eye...its lone eightball eye opened revealing the terrifying gear-shaped red iris inside.

And the plasma shots rang out.

"YAH!"  Rotor tumbled backwards.

"Not cool, dude!"  Asriel fired back.  His shots were doing minimal damage at best.

Those of us still composed joined in the barrage of hits before the monster started splitting apart again and flinging its pieces to the other side of the room and reassembing itself.

Mega Man tried using Scramble Thunder on it...but to his horror, it proved...immune.  No callback to the Thunder Beam this time, it would seem.

Pile Driver did decent damage but not enough to turn the tide of battle.  Plus it was wearing us down.

No matter what weapons and attacks we tried, it was taking them pretty easily.  At least until...

"POWER GEAR!"  Rock tried the last weapon in his arsenal.  Chain Blast at full power.  Just our luck.  It WOULD have to be the last thing we tried, right?

A couple of those and it looked like the beast was on the ropes.  I expected it to engage a Power Gear at this point but we were all shocked when its glow wasn't red...but blue.

"A SPEED GEAR?!?"  Lupe gasped.

"Why would Wily put a speed gear into--"

And then our horrors were realized as it dismantled UBER-FAST and the pieces all turned into miniature Yellow Devils that moved like lightning...and in a syncrhonized mob!  Only one piece however had the eye and it was hard to nail down.

Between all of these attacks repeating in cycles, it wasn't looking good for us.  But we were wearing him down with explosive attacks too.

"What an eye-full.  It's really making me eye-rate!  Eye can't believe how much this thing is giving me the eye-tis!"  Violet joked.

"Hey!  Save some puns for me, Aunt Vi!"

Just when we thought it would never end...

A final explosion wiped the whole thing out.  And like that we had access to the inner sanctums of the castle.

It only got worse from there.

Wily's entire forces were out and he had a nasty surprise waiting for us.  Several of them.  I described them as giant, spike-and-saw-covered caterpiller robot tunnelers.  And we'd be running from them the same way Bunnie and Rock ran from those death flames in Torch Man's campground.

"He's got everything on the hunt for us!"  Rock grimmaced.

"It's making me think of the old days at some points...but I don't remember Wily's technology being this...advanced!"

"That's progress for you.  Even for an evil despot."  Sally wrinkled her nose.

The trek through dangerous territory included a couple new hazards as well.  I described them as giant, weaponized supercomputer towers...in skull likenesses.  The eyes hid their own sets of attacks while the mouth hid a deadly plasma laser that threatened to drown us in laser death.

"Overkill much, Wily?!?"  Violet complained as we treked through the verticle climb with rows and rows of the skull caterpiller machines closing in on us.  It reminded me of much deadlier versions of the closing walls in the distant future of 21XX...Mega Man X and Zero's time period.

"We have reached the next guardian.  Guards up, everyone."  Bunnie advised.

A long drop led us into what I could describe as an orbital accelerator reactor room.

If we were convinced Wily couldn't build anything NEW...we were about to be proven wrong.

For it was at this time we met Mawverne.  I suppose it was as accurate a name as any...at least it would seem so when it actually opened up and revealed its skull-ish maw.  For the most part, however, it was very spherical.  Magneta-colored robot at its core, covered in a spikey shell.  It almost liked like a massive upgrade to CircRing Q9 from the fifth war and one of Wily's previous castle guardians.  I noticed its kept its shell integrated with an INTENSE electromagnetic field.

"Got any ideas how to fight that thing?"  Rotor asked as it started circling the room and firing off red energy spheres.  It also launched primative robot drones at us to divide and conquer our forces.

"Just one.  Bounce Ball!"

"Bounce Ball?"

"That electromagnetic field might not be for looks.  If it shares any systems in common with Fuse Man, it won't like insulated attacks much."

So Mega Man unleashed Bounce Ball while the rest of us ran interferrence, distracting its attention in multiple directions.  We were turning its own strategy against it!

It was well into the barrage that it engaged its Power Gear and the megabeam lasers came out.

"Whoah!"

I thought I saw Pit lose a few feathers form his wings from a close call.  Asriel had to go to evasive maneuvers.  And even Gadget was struggling with her gear, trying to modify and makeshift something to pierce through the electric static keeping our attacks out of its core.

But sure enough Bounce Ball disrupted the field and continued to pry it open until we were all able to unload.

One destroyed Mawverne later...

"That was intense."

"C'mon.  We're more than halfway in, now.  If I know Wily, the next area in his castle is..."

Let me finish that sentence for Mega.  The next thing in his castle would of course be rematches with the Robot Masters.  The eleventh in a long dynasty of Dr. Wily teleport systems.  Good grief.

We all split up and took on familiar headaches, some of us even adapting copies or versions of Mega Man's weapons so we'd be on par to play on their weaknesses.

"DROPPED LIKE A HOT BRIIICK!"

"CHEMISTRYYYYYYYY!!!!"

"I SEE YOUR POOOOOINT!"

"CATCH YOU ON THE REBOOOOUND!"

"BLACKOUUUUUUUT!!!"

"SHATTEEEEEEEERED!!!!"

"MORE...TRAINING....!"

"BIIIIG BAAAAANG!!!"

Finally, one teleport capsule led us to the very heart of the castle.  The only place Wily could be hiding.

And while it seemed we all were prepped to get a piece of it...

Wily was clever enough to make sure we were scattered in the final area, letting what was left of us army try to pick us off.

Which left Mega Man to go in alone and face Wily Machine Number 11.

Even worse...our communication with him got cut off.

"Guess this is Mega Man's fight from here on out."  Asriel sighed

"It's up to him now.  Let's try to find our way out of--"

"Huh?  Wasn't that Auto just now?"

"What's he doing here?"

"Nevermind that...I just saw Dr. Light head that way!"  Pit pointed.

"Dr. LIght?!  In a dangerous place like this?"

"We should follow him!"

As we attempted to catch up with Dr. Light, he too gave us the slip.

"We're running out of places to search."

"It's not safe leaving the Light Household poking around here.  At any moment, this place could--"

We all heard the alarms going off.

"That's a self-destruct system if I ever heard one."  Asriel shrunk down a bit.

"Then our job here is finished.  We better get out of here."

"But without Dr. Light?"

"If I know him, he's already found Mega Man.  Rock will get him to safety."

"But what about Wily?"

"We just have to hope Mega Man finally caught him."

"Ultra Crew Institute Action Team...fall back!  This mission is complete!"  I ordered.

It wouldn't be long before we'd all join up again at the Light household.  Gear Fortress blew sky high just as Asriel had predicted.

Afterwards we'd learn from Mega Man that Wily escaped and promised he'd return again.

For the rest of us we'd be treated to a place at the dinner table to break bread with the Lights.

I'd later learn that Mega Man's double gear system had been temporarily installed into Auto for one last special task.  And to my and Asriel's delight it turned out we'd have eight more joining us for a group photo.  As Dr. Light said...it would be a waste to let all those robot talents be buried in the rubble of Gear Fortress.  Which answered our question of what Auto was even doing there.

"Well, team.  We did it again."

"Go, UCIAT!"

Thank-yous all around the Light Household, followed by that photo op.

"Smile, Azzy.  You just made history with us.

## Sub-Entry 216: "Thinking About Chara's Future as a Soul Reaper":

I thought back to mid September.  I had been dreading the season change.  While I didn't have a problem with autumn, it was a constant reminder that winter was coming.  The cycle, man.  The cycle.  It was here now.  And there was nothing I could do about it.  October was whittling away.

Nevertheless, this inevitability was far from my mind despite it being practically on my doorstep.  I was still riding high after Asriel's birthday, all this time.  It was a small step in the grand plan but it left the biggest of impacts.  Asriel had chosen me as his new best friend.  But what kind of friend would I be if I didn't take the chance to reunite him with his first best friend.

Asriel had been in the best spirits of his life after that day.   Even during the time in Monsteropolis, taking part in a mission that was one in a long line of missions that transcended generations of the Arcades' brainchild.  Whether it went by the name "The N-Division" or the "Ultra Crew Institute Action Team, heroes may come and go but the brotherhood is forever.

Having said that, my focus shifted from that to Chara.  I'd thought back to her decision.  I'd thought back to her reunion with Asriel.  I thought back to all of it.

"Do you know what you're getting into, Chara Dreemurr?"  I muttered to myself, while I had a moment alone.

Really, Chara wasn't a bad egg.  She was trying to get her afterlife together.  The fact that she made the cut into the Soul Reaper recruitment and was among its trainees was reassuring.  I wonder...was she ready for the responsibility?  It would mean she'd be learning all the same techniques Bunnie and I learned--from basic combat to advance Kidou.  Plus she'd be getting her own Zanpakutou.

With me still not figuring out how the passage of time was working for Chara, not being a native spirit of Ichigo's world, I had no idea how long it would take her to advance through her training, acquire he own Zanpakutou, and even what squad she'd be assigned to.  I think...she had one in mind.  While every squad had its merits, not all of them were a good fit.

"Okay, Chara.  You have options.  But be warned.  Some of them...you might "live" to regret."

In particular, three squads had a a standing shame and left a dark stain on the Gotei 13.

Squad 3.  Former captain, Gin Ichimaru.  He spent so much time playing the traitor to get close to Sousuke Aizen.  Even before the defection, Gin wasn't very trusted, wasn't very liked, and honestly...his creepy smile and constantly closed anime eyes...just no.  He was just...ironically pleasant.  Even though he betrayed Aizen in the end, the things he did leading up to it left some permanent scars on his squad.  Honestly...I suspected Squad Three was Chara's first choice.  I'd explain why, another time.

Squad 5.  Sousuke Aizen's squad.  The greatest shame fell on this one.  How would you like to be known as the squad that was lead by the single worst traitor in Seireitei history?

And Squad 9.   Lead originally by Captain Kaname Tousen, the blind swordsman and the other captain to defect to Aizen's side.  Unlike Gin, his loyalty to Aizen was absolute.  Stoic and seemingly noble at first...his blindness went further than his eyes.  In the end he had his reasons to seek revenge against the Soul Society.  I...felt for Sajin Komamura over losing his good friend.  To date, this shadow still lingered.

So the other squads?

Squad one?  Waaay out of her league.  The Commander-General would leave her a cinder the first discretion she committed.  And I'd never escape the guilt nor would I ever be able to look Asriel in the eyes, knowing I let his best friend pretty much choose death sentence in the afterlife.  It was no less confusing how perma-death worked in the Soul Society.  It was possible to die forever even when you're already dead?  Somebody explain it to me, some day.

Squad two?  Assassin corps.  Soi Fon was far stricter than Bunnie.  And the idea of her being a trained assassin...kinda scared me.  Plus...I had a feeling Soi Fon's infatuation with Yoroichi Shihouen would become instantly obvious to Chara.  First time Chara made light of that, she'd feel the sting of Soi Fon's Suzumibachi.  It took two strikes in the same spot to insta-kill.  The first was a warning and a nasty poison.  Not even Chara could dodge that on her best day.

Squad four?  Medical corps.  As much as I'd like to believe Toriel had an influence over Chara's upbringing...no.  I couldn't see her as a healer. And honestly...I'm pretty sure Unohana would put the fear of the gods into Chara if she acted up.   Between the two...I think Retsu could be much scarier than Toriel.

Squad Six.  Having to answer to Byakuya Kuchiki?  She'd never survive his strong, silent, stoic impatience.  His time was not to be wasted and his social status was never to be slighted.  Considering how hard he was on his sister, Rukia?  Not a chance.

Squad Seven.  Sajin ran a tight ship.  But he was noble and fair.  Might be the closest thing to reminding Chara of what it was like to be around someone who wasn't human.  Still...I couldn't help but feel he was no Fluffybuns.

Squad Eight?  Kyouraku's constant lounging, drinking, and womanizing was not a good environment for her to be in...even if she was technically beyond legal age...by standards of the living.  I don't think she'd be okay with it, either.  Considering how much of a serious, by-the-book cramp his lieutanant was and how she barely put up with his slothly ways?  Yeah.  Two girls on his case wouldn't help things.  Honestly...I wouldn't wish this squad on "Bottles" of that other Undertale AU.

Squad Ten.  I could just see it now.  Toushirou Hitsugaya would never hear the end of her jabbing at his apparent young age.  Based on how much she picked on Asriel?  Toushirou would kick her out in a matter of days with the icy-est of receptions.  Literally.  Though she might get along with Rangiku.  On second thought scratch that.  She was a horrible flirt and lush who flaunted her...bustiness.  Talk about a mismatch of squad members who didn't act their age!

Squad Eleven.  Zaraki would laugh her right out of the door.  With the exception of his lieutenant, Yachiru, everyone in Squad Eleven was a muscle-bound brute who craved brutal batttle.  I worried that it was no place for someone like her.  One consolation to this was...the comradery would be great.  As long as you abided by Zaraki's code of battle, he treated his men with respect and enforced comradery.  The man really did care about everyone under him, even though he'd warn that if you ever showed signs of weakness, he'd probably kill you.  I just didn't want to find out if he was serious.

Squad Twelve.  Not.  A.  Chance.  In.  HELL.  Kurotsuchi would waste no time in disecting Chara just to study her unique spirit morphology; what with her being from off world.  More than that...when he didn't get his way, when he didn't get the answers he wanted, even from other squads, the man had an abusive streak in him that I just couldn't forgive.

Squad Thirteen.  I really wanted to back Juushirou Ukitake.  He was good to kids and youths...but that was the problem.  He was good to a fault.  Too good to them.  He rarely got the concept of kids growing up and not being kids any more.  And frankly it would drive Chara nuts being treated as a kid.  She'd always feel like she was being babied and not treated as an adult or equal.  The irony of Juushirou's frailty was that he was always an overly generous grandpa...or...uncle who just cared too much when he was the one who needed to be handled with kid gloves.

The more I thought about it, the more I worried about where Chara was headed in the Soul Society.  And I really wanted to assure Asriel she'd be in good hands.

Furthermore...I didn't want him to know just yet how dangerous a profession being a Soul Reaper was.

To be blunt...even though she was already dead...she could still be killed.  And this time even her conscious self wouldn't come back in any shape or form.  Being devoured by a Hollow?  I'd never be able to face Asriel if that happened.

"Oh, Chara.  What did I let you get into?  How is this going to work out?  And more importantly...will I ever be able to get you back to the World of the Living some day?  THrough reincarnation?  Through some other means?  I just don't know anymore."

Still.  Things were better than they were.  I could live with that.

I wonder...  Could Chara become a powerful ally some day?

May that one day be the case.

"Here's to the True Name."  I held up my can of Volt Cola in a toast and downed the rest.

## Sub-Entry 217: "Too Much Crossover For Even the King of Crossovers?":

A while back, before the Undertale research began, before my stint with Mobius, and even before I joined up with the long and winding quest of Inuyasha (following my Substitute Soul Reaper days), in an unspecified past I was assigned a pretty impressive-scaled project which the universe in question dubbed Case file CN-00-FF-01.  But they called it "FusionFall".

Individually I had researched the Prime counterparts of many of them in SPECTRE form to preseve their timelines; as well as AU incarnations of them, individually.

But this...this was what I thought would be my ultimate mission.  A nexus iteration where they all intersected and interacted.

A mission that predated my research into the BLMN-000 timelines known for "PPGD" and "GT" that I deemed was no "SNAFU".  Heh-heh.  Good times.

Anyway, it was the first of its kind from this area of the CN Belt.  Back then it was orbited by the starship Absolution--a vessel piloted by T.O.M. and his A.I. partner, S.A.R.A.  I think it was?

Anyway.  The Council brought to my attention the threat of Lord Fuse and asked me to look into it.

I started by traveling 11 years into the past from that point to figure out what led up to whatever I was in for.

To my surprise I would happen across an iteration of boy genius, Dexter and the livinng computer robot, Computress working on, of all things, a time travel experiment.

I probably should have cautioned him about the dangers of time travel but...I didn't want to get an earful of angst and a reminder of how smart Dexter was (or thought he was).

However by that point I came to count on one thing that could distrupt a time-travel experiment more than anything.

"Oooooh!  What does this button do?"

What was that incident again that caused a compelling arguement against brother-sisterly love as siblings?  "LABretto" I think it was.  Mental note to self...thank your lucky stars Gadget and I never had that kind of relationship.

Ahem...back on task...

"So this is what happened..."  I pondered as I made the jump 11 years into the future.  I tracked the time capsule of his "test subject" and soon discovered the mess had been made by a threat calling himself Lord Fuse.

"Well this is new..."  I grumbled, looking up at the planetoid in the sky looming over the Earth.  I couldn't help but allude back to the invasion of Unicron in another mission.

"Well.  That's caustic."  I almost stepped in the greenish acid gunk that was infesting the Earth.  It looked like only one city still stood.  Kinda reminded me of Townsville in some ways but...different?

I came across recorded transmissions from Dexter and soon discovered that a lot of heroes in this world went M.I.A. presumed missing or...well...let's not go there.

"Yup.  Looks like we're going back again.  But how far?"  I reasoned.   A year seemed adequate, right?

And that began a pretty lengthy endevour of meeting up with a lot of familiar faces.  Even ones that were still around today.  Heck, Goat Son was friends with Ben Tenneyson.

Eventually the situation was finally under control and I thought that would be the end of it.  Honestly, I felt overwhelmed by how many worlds were brought together at a time.  I could barely wrap my head around how many came together for that Super Smash Bros. tournament that Pit took part in ever so often.  Recently he got the invite for their "Ultimate" tournament.  But I digress.  It was almost too much for me to handle.

Even the Nanos blew my mind.  But that's another story.

So how is this old case relevant, now?

The time warp that I thought had been corrected in spite of Dee-Dee's unintended chaos in her brother's lab that made us even aware of the situation had branched off into a splinter...a micro Alternate Universe.  Like an Universe within a universe.

"So...the Council is calling this "FusionFall Heroes"?  Okay then."  I rubbed my chin as I went over the report.

But I guess I wasn't ready for Daimyou to have her own contribution to things.

"You want what?"

"I believe it is time for Asriel to become involved in STC affairs.  He already has the bracer.  It's only a matter of time before he starts learning more about what we do.  And that will make it harder to keep the secrets from him."

"So...we're keeping him from learning the secrets of the truth...by telling him the truth.  Makes perfect sense."

"You of all people know how destinies are often written."

"I know.  Believe me I know.  I guess...this time loop thing is necessary?"

"It is.  And more vital to the grand plan than you realize.

Well to make a long story short, I briefed Asriel and got him up to speed with only the necessary details.  And before long we were teamed up with a "rogue's gallery" of heroes and villains who'd put their differences asside, including Finn and Fionna the Humans, Marceline the Vampire Queen (I'm sure I mentioned her in a previous log), Mordecai and Rigby, Gumball Waterson, Mojo Jojo, Johnny Bravo, and somehow both Four-Arms AND Feedback--two of Ben 10's alien archetypes.  Huh.  Guess the anomaly broke and reshaped realities in stranger ways than I thought.

Further investigation revealed that this incident was happening parellel, if not concurrent with the original FusionFall timeline.  In other words, this could be two realities ramming together if we weren't careful.

"You seem out of sorts, best friend.  What's up?"

"It just hits a little home showing you essentially what was once a closed case file.  I mean...you could potentially see things that may or may not have happened in my past that--"

"Easy, Volt.  I'll respect your right to privacy and only ask questions if absolutely necessary.  I get it.  And I'll grow into it when I'm ready to know."

You're too good for this world, Goat Son.

"Well.  Let's clean up a mess!"

Now I'm sure you're itching to know what happened next but...

"...once again this casefile is now classified under top secret, Dr. Arcade.  Any word breathed about this mission between you and your collegues will be a breach of security and a violation of the contract you negotiated.  Behind our backs, I remind you."

"Whine, whine, whine, Councilman."  I crossed my arms.

"How DARE you!"  One of the councilwomen retorted.

"As for the "anomaly"."

"That's MISTER Anomaly to you."  Goat Son grinned with a smug look.

Scoffs and murmurs.  I taught him so well.

"Step out of line with this absolute, immutable vow of confidentiality and not an atom of you will exist in past, present, or future!"

"Gee whiz, you can count on me!"  Asriel said as cheerfully, almost mockingly as possible.

"Both of you get out of our chambers this instant.  Our business is concluded."

Well.  That's the way the costume egg rolls...or bounces...or whatever.

"I think I'm going to take it easy on mass-crossovers for a bit."

I picked up folders marked "Punch-Time Explosion", "Project: Exonaut", and "Jump Force" and grinned like a loon.

"...psyche!"

Hail to the king, baby.

## Sub-Entry 218: "We're Neither Tiny Nor Toony, But We're All Still Kinda Loony":

What could I tell you about Acmetropolis?  What COULDN'T I tell you about it?

Imagine a city-planet in which its inhabitants were affected by a cosmic meteor event that knocked it off its axis and  gave rise to a new breed of heroes--the Loonatics.

Now...let's just say this world happened to be a collective of certain Warner Bros. animated intellectual properties that reminded us to ask "What's up, Doc" or that we could be downright "despicable" (said with a slobbery lisp).

Now dilute the comedy just a hair and up the action aspect.  Yeah.  Welcome to a future time.  The year, 2772.

It's an unnerving sign when Lady Destiny just HAPPENS to know the supreme alien presence named Zadavi, who took it upon herself to be responsible for the well-being and protection of this planet.  A task she set forth in motion when she gathered a collection of those affected by the meteor's radiation.  Said "Loonatics".   Each of them bore an uncanny resemblance (when out of uniform to a certain "loony bunch" I'd known from some of the world desgined "WB" in our database.

So who were these heroes?  Well, let me list them off as my team just happens to be meeting them.

Ace Bunny.  Team Leader.  Powers comparable to Cyclops of the X-Men.  Uncannily so.  (Heh.).  A former stunt rabbit in movies.

"Konichiwa, Ace-san."  Bunnie and Ace exchanged bows.

"Nice ta' meetcha, Master Rabbotou.  Good to meet another master of the sword.

Yeah, that's right.  He also knew his martial arts and was good with a blade.

Lexi Bunny.  I'd rank her second in command and definitely some chemistry with Ace.  A former cheerleader-hopeful at Acmemetropolis University.  Master of the Brain Blast, though I'd describe it as more of a super voice, packing a sonic whallop.

Did I need to say that Mitzi took a shine to her?

"That color is so you!  I love it!"

"Thanks.  I've always liked green.  But pink suits you amazingly."

Danger Duck.  There's always a guy who's a little too full of himself for his own good.  A former pool boy and a showoff wanting to hog the glory, his powers were...weird.  Flaming eggs were not something I'd see often.

I think it was a mistake letting Antoine meet him.

I'll hold off on their conversation.  They're STILL arguing.

Oh brother.

Slam Tasmanian.  A former ring-fighter, likely a pro-wrestler in staged fights.  His Ability to become a lving, spinning tornado pretty much spoke for itself.

"Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!"  Jon had been treated to splitting half of Slam's impossibly large submarine sandwich.

A match made in heaven...or a least the local bistro.

Tech E. Coyote.  A genius after my own heart and the magnetic powers to boot.  Plus he had the ability of molecular reassembly, as he tended to get atomized to pieces in less-than-profound instances.  A former college student, implied to have been kicked out for being "mad" after the faculty abused one of his machines.  (In his defense he DID install a self-destruct button for extra credit.  Go figure.)

"It is genius, Doctor."

"I'd like to think so.  Good science is hard to appreciate by the layman.  Reassuring I can finally benchmarket my work with someone of equivalent intellect."

"Well, brains run in my family.  At least so I'm told.  Adoption should probably disqualify me from that.  But what can you do?"

And Rev Runner.  Sally already likes him.  An ex-delivery boy who had an inventive streak (heh) of his own.  After the meteor hit, his already speedy nature had been amplified pretty significantly.  To the point that he even talked blindingly fast.

"Race ya!"

"You're on!"

Zip.

"Race ya again!"

"Bring it!"

And again.  And again.  And again.  The two of them certainly were having fun.

So I'm sure there was more to this than a meet-and-greet.

That was when the transmission came in.

"Yo, eyes forward, team.  Zadavi's on the horn."

Asriel was already at the console before Ace summoned the team.

The projection of the etherial-looking alien came through. Stoic and to the point.  It was hard to believe she was in charge of a band of loonies like this.  But then again...maybe not.

Suffice to say, the Loonatics' sworn enemy, Optimatus was at it again.  So who was he sending to cause trouble this time?

Electro J. Fudd?  Ophiocus Sam?  Sylth Vester?

Or maybe it was one of the ones that didn't have a...familiar counterpart like Drake Sypher, the infamous power-stealer.  I sure didn't need him taking our hybrid abilities.

Or Keyboard Man, the orchestrator of Bootes Bellinda.  Not another Sixty-Four String Theory incident.

As it turned out...all of the above and then some.

If I were to continue logging ever fine detail of what went down next, this entry would go on ad naseum.  Plus there was the matter of the STC Council stepping an doing an audit of our group's activities.

I'm getting real slipshot with all these trimmed logs.  To whoever may be reading these, it has to be dissapointing cutting out so much action and conversation just on the whims of my bosses being micro-managing twerps.  Technically they shouldn't even have ANY authority over Ultra Crew Institute operations.    Yeah.  I disappoint myself.  One day, I'll be able to release the uncensored, unedited truth behind some of these crossover events.

Sometimes even Daimyou can't bail me out of things, I guess. The Council always finds a way to pull rank behind her back and confiscate any data and log sections they deem too sensitive to declassify until further notice.

Nonetheless, I fast forward to this point as much as I don't want to.

A double-sword strike from Bunnie and Ace together pretty much nailed the final nail in the battle.  With arrests pretty much 100% all around, Optimalus was going to have to do some more recruiting for his own "rogue's gallery".  Heh-heh-heh.

"I thank you again for your contributions to Acmetropolis' defense, Ultra Crew.  You have proven valuable allies in the fight against the criminal and the evil."

"It was nothing, Zadavia.  Hero-ing is what we do."  Asriel brushed it off.

"Be to be speak-eeng for your-zelf, mona mi.  I was 'ow you 'zay...tres magnifique!"  Antoine was already showboating.

"Whatever, blondie.  You weren't nearly as a impressive as Danger Duck!"

"I am not to be take-eeng zis' from a fowl who speaks in 'zee third person!"

"You wanna go?   I'll have you swimming in a puddle of yolks, fuzzball!"

"En garde, you spandex-clad feather-duster!"

Lexi sighed, crossing her arms.

"Can we just leave them here?"  Mitzi asked.

"Soooo tempting."

Meanwhile, Tech and I were ptuting the finishing touches on his latest invention during our down time.

"YEEEAAAAAAH!"

"Uh...sorry about that."  I looked down at the pile of ashes and the pair of googly eyes that somehow remained alive.

"That's...quite...alright....happens more often...than I care to admit..."  Tech blinked a few times before his regeneration kicked in and he was back to his old self.

"Guess we have that in common."  I rubbed the back of my head, thinking how the Goddess' Contracts gave me the same liberty with regeneration.

"Make a note...insulate the wiring before we do anything else."

"Good thought."

I'd comment on Sally and Rev...if the could take a nanosecond to slow down long enough to join us.  The building was pretty much filled with their fading light contrail blurrs as the continued to race.

Which left Slam and Jon to continue their binge-eating.

"Until we meet again, Ultra Crew."  Ace bid us fairwell, when both teams finally managed to gather.

"We're counting on it, Ace."  Asriel shared a high-five.

And with that we were off and homeward bound.

## Sub-Entry 219: "A Pound of Pups For Goat Son to Help Out":

You know...Asriel's got a soft spot for charity work.  And it was only a matter of time before a little snippet from my own past met up with his present.

Submitted for your approval, Holly's Dog Pound.  Formerly Millie Trueblood's.

With me so far?

First,  a bit of backstory.

Since the dawn of time there's been a bond between man and man's best friend, the dog, etc, etc.

As such the bonds of friendship was so strong a select few who truly felt love and friendship toward their fellow canine that the dogs passed on a magical ability for their owners to be able to speak and understand a common language.  Being able to truly talk to and understand canines became known as...Puppy Power.  Yes, I'm serious.  No Scrappy-Doo jokes, please.

Generation after generation this power was passed down to truly worthy humanoids who cared for their fellow dog.

Fast-forward to the not-to-recent but still modern past.

It was a time where many pups enjoyed peace, freedom, and harmony in their own little society.  It was until the coming of Captain Slaughter.  To this day I honestly don't know if he's completely human...but I do know that he was intensely evil.  He gathered many up and they were never seen from again.

The rest escaped and scattered.  Of them one in particular found his way to Millie Trueblood, a sweet old lady who could not let man's best friend freeze in the cold.  Ironically...that became the inspiration for his name--Cooler.

And it wasn't long before one of Cooler's very friends from the old days, the excentric derby-wearing Howler caught up with him.

Enter Nose Marie, a southern belle who'd take a shine to Cooler after he saved her from a tight spot.  I'd learn to recognize one-sided crushes pretty quick and Nose Marie was head over paws for Cooler.

However, she did inspire Cooler's idea for Millie to start a dog pound.  And it was a success which brought in more of Cooler's friends, old and new.  ANd everything was great.

Everything except for Millie's blood relative, Katrina Stoneheart, who lived in the old house on the hill next door.  And she and her daughter.  HATED.  DOGS.

To cut a long story short, Millie's passing was heartbreaking and left the pound in a tight spot.  Until her will was found, Stoneheart was ready to take the wrecking ball to the pound and put an end to the barking dogs for good.  Yet the will did turn up and the heir was named--Katrina's other daughter, who fell quite far from th apple tree--loveable Holly.  And the rest was history.

Cut to today where Asriel was already helping out (in human disguise of course).

"I'm so happy you're helping out with the pound, Asriel.  Lately the responsibilities have been piling up.  It's just so much for one girl to handle withotu adult supervision.  And Auntie Katrina is no help."

"My pleasure.  Miss Lupe taught me the value of loving all animal creatures in the world.  And dogs are no exception."  Azzy nuzzled spritely Bright Eyes.

"I could get to like this guy's style.  He's a real party animal."  Cooler joked and followed up with that sly snicker I'd come to recognize.

White and black spotted beagle...possibly dalmation?  Eh...I didn't know his dog breed.  But what did standout was that trademark jacket of his--a gift of the late Millie Trueblood.  Honestly...I described Cooler as being the dog version of Arthur "The Fonze" Fonzarelli with a sillier sense of humor.

I shook my head and smiled.

"Yo, Howler.  How's that crazy new invention of yours coming?"

"It's almost complete!  It just needs a bitening of the tolts...er...the whitening of the jolts...er...(howling)...a tightening of the bolts!"

Brown and splotchy with a curly yellow wig.  Wore that red derby with the crank in the side and the matching red vest.

Yeah, he had a noticeable speech impediment.  And he was handy with tools for a pup.

"Land sakes alive.  Could you make that thing any bigger and more overengineered?"  Nose Marie looked at it dubiously.

A basset hound, I think?  Dark brown fur, a rose perched by her ear.  Kind of a southern dress.

"That's nothing!  I had an uncle who used to build all kinds of stuff, yeah!  It was a million...a billion...a krazillion times bigger than that, yeah!  And it ran on dog biscuits and kibble and could power like...a hundred cities, yeah!"

Small and white and wearing a diaper.  He was the youngest.  And the one with the overactive imagination.

Oh, Whopper.  Telling tall tales again.  Isn't it about time to change your diaper, little pup?  The youngest and the most imaginative of the group.  But y'now.  We still loved him.

As it turned out Howler was working on an automated dog washing machine to get everyone cleaned up and ready just in case of city inspection.  And such an event would be a golden opportunity for Kat Stoneheart to sabotage the pound as she'd been attempting for years.  Even now.

"Golly-gee-whilikers with triple-chocolate ice cream and a cherry on top!  It's so swell of you all to be so nice to us in our time of need!"

I don't think Asriel minded that Bright Eyes always seemed to talk like a dessert menu.  If ever a cuter cinnamon roll in dog form,  Light colored.  Short blond hair.  Blue-eyed.  Something about her was very cheerleader like.  She was too sweet and innocent for this world.

Anyway...while this party was the coolest...there was a certain party in the house on the hill that was the furthest from it.

"Mommy dearest!  Those awful dogs are barking again!  Make them stop!  Make them stop!  Make them stoooop!"  Bratina Stoneheart whined, on the verge of throwing her Suzie-Spit-Up Doll.

A hiss from their ugly, matted cat, Catgut seemed to confirm the sentiment.

"I can't stand it!"  Red-haired Katrina shouted.  If ever there was someone who could match Cruella DeVille...she was it.  Good lord, how did that woman stand herself as nasty as she could be.

Rather than tell or explain, I'll leave it up to the imagination and just say that it would be a long week of her declaring war on the pound and using every dirty trick in the book to close it.

The overdue electrical bill, WHICH she withheld to make sure Holly wouldn't be able to pay it on time.

In stepped Violet to cover the bill.

"Better luck next time."  I mused as Stoneheart stormed off as the power company worker confirmed all was in order.

"Bye Ms. Stoneheart!"  Azzy waved pleasantly.

I could have sworn I saw Whopper blow a raspberry.

"Hey now."  I mock-scolded to "try" to set a good adult example.  But I was loving it.

Then came the attempt at making the place seem haunted to drive everyone out.

Suffice to say a few bags of flour was able to write an...ironic payback.  On top of that, Asriel got Biff Barker's autograph.  Nice.

And the meeting of the local Dog-Hater's club sure ended well with Katrina running for some public office.  But who knew that her attempt to also starve the dogs out would backfire drastically.  "Enough food to feed an army of dogs" indeed.  I couldn't have put it better.

Then there was the attempt to fast-talk a rich couple into paying for the demolishing of the pound to put up expensive condominiums.  When that was in danger of falling through, Katrina had Cat Gut and several other of his alley cat friends make a mess of the couples' estate and pin the blame on Cooler and the pups.  But as always...the truth did come out and Stoneheart's plans fell through.

Perhaps even worse than that was the Stonehearts' strategic plan to make Holly miserable in every possible way.  With Bright Eyes believing the answer lay in asking a Fairy Dog-mother for help, many of us dismissed it as wishful thinking.  Until we met Zazu.  Her bumbling attempts to do the right thing almost blew up in our faces until finally she came through and Holly's horrible family's plans were unraveled.

Whopper even managed to get us into some trouble when his lies to his rich uncle spun out of control.  With us bending over backwards to make the little tyke look like a fellow millionaire, it was only a matter of time before the Stonehearts returned home and exposed not one...but two liars.  Yup.  Bamboozling runs in his family, it would seem.

We even had an incident in which Howler was blamed for thefts all over the pound which got him banished according to the pound's laws and regulations.  Only for the real culprets to turn out to be a family of racoons hiding in Howler's dog house.  Thank goodness Asriel was so admamant in refusing to believe Howler was a klepto in spite of the seemingly obvious incriminating evidence.  On that note...I could have done without knowing what Cooler's "woogie" was.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

But even Asriel and I had trouble dealing with things when Captain Slaughter himself took charge of some of the situations.  Suffice to say if he intimited the entire Stoneheart family as well as Asriel and myself...he was not one to be trifled with.  When Asriel's eyes turned purple I knew we were in a tight spot.  One we got out of by the skin of our teeth.

After a week...

"I think things are under control now, Doctor.  Thank you and Asriel for everything you've done.

"We aim to please."

"Stop in any time.  The raw-hide doggy chews are on me."  Cooler joked again.

"Er...great."

I could always save some for Jon.  He loved chewing on those.

"Take care all of you."  Asriel petted Nose Marie.

"I always depend on the kindness of strangers."

"You should meet Aunt Vi.  She's much stranger than me."  Azzy smirked.

And who knew?  Asriel had the gift of Puppy Power, too.

I don't really needs to explain that I had it because..well...half wolf, y'know?

All's well that ends well...

Honestly, did you think I'd leave off without one last thing to take care of...?

On our way back home, just as we were about to reach the gateway site...

"You!"

I let out a sigh.  "Yes, Lord of the Underworld?"  I turned around.  "Oh.  Sorry.  Mistook you for someone else."

"I don't know what strings you pulled to keep that infernal dog pound open, but I assure you I will not be silenced!  I will have my revenge, you awful awful people!"

"You icky-poo creeps aren't welcome!"  Brattina sneered at us.

Cat Gut hissed again.

"Mark my words, if it takes ever last penny, I will ruin you!  I will drag your names through the mud and absolutely bankrupt you in court!"

As if she had that much financial clout.  She wasn't fooling me.

"I'm going to give you one chance to walk away from this and then I won't be responsible for what happens next."

"And you, you horrible brat of a teenager!  I will take steps to have whatever authority is in charge to have you put in juvenile detention for the rest of your life!"

I let out a sigh. Threatening me was one thing. But don't EVER even joke about doing something like that to Asriel Tobias Dreemurr-Arcade.

"Now...you crossed the line.  Am I right, Asriel?"

"I believe justice is calling."  Asriel looked over his shoulder, his eyes turning yellow.  "And I will not be intimidated by the likes of a mean, old hag like you."  He followed up, eyes turning orange.  I almost never heard him use insults.  Which only proved he was just as mad as me.

"Wha...what's going one with your--!"

"Shall we?"  he asked.

"Just this once and only once."  I said as we both decided to transform at the same time.

"Let this be a lesson if you insist on being monstrous.  Sometimes...there are actual monsters lying in wait to teach you a lesson."

"School's in session."  Asriel cracked his knuckles.

We didn't have to bluff much.  Their screams were enough as they went running back to the creepy Stoneheart household.

We quickly demorphed.

"I still hate bullies."  Asriel wrinkled his snoot.

"Come on.  Let's go home where we're appreciated."

"Pizza's on me, Volt."

And we were off while the Stonehearts cowered in their shame.  They dare not speak a word about what they saw.  Who'd believe them?

We'd later get a call from Holly again thanking us and wondering what had gotten into her Auntie Katrina.

Asriel replied with a pun or two, dodging the issue.  I don't think Holly suspected anything.  And even if she had, she probably wouldn't have objected...much.

"You seemed pretty happy back there taking care of the dogs.  Thinking of adopting?"

"I'd by lying if I said I wasn't tempted.  But no.  It'd be more responsibility than I could handle at this point in my life.  Really...I probably should have gotten a pet earlier on so I could learn responsibility when I had less on my plate.  Maybe some day...when I'm grown up and on my own I'll get a canine companion of my own.  I mean you see how happy Rock and Rush are together."

"Point well made."

"C'mon.  Let's go home and take a rest for a bit...my dogs are barkin'."  Asriel shrugged with a wink.

"Oh, you!"

Nothing like a happy ending, am I right?

## Sub-Entyr 220: "ytiC adnariM ni neewollaH":

Do not adjust your computer screen.  You are reading that title correctly.  And rest assured there's a certain someone who needs a thwapping.  But until then.  It's that time of year again.

"...Happy Halloween, everyone!"

"Enjoying yourself, I see."

"Yeah.  Still do.  And before you ask, no.  I don't think I'm too old for this.  Yet."

"That's the spirit."

"Hah.  Spirit.  Good one."

"There's a hug in in for you in the near future.  Right now I don't think our costumes would allow it."

"That's a good point, Bestie."

Oh yeah.  It's a Gender-Swapped Violet fanfic entry.  I'll allow it..just this once.

"So, who'd you come as, Amp?"

"I came as Shockrock from Benette 10!"

"Good fit.  Speaking of which.  Benette and I need to catch up some time."  Asriella looked on.

"Provided she's not in another competition with Generator Lexy."

"Robot Girl against Alien Gal?  Oh boy.  I'm beginning to see why you don't like competition."

"It leads to arguements which leads to fights.  It's better when we co-op, right?"

"Right."

"Well that sounds boring."

Vin.

"Okay.  I'll bite.  What anime or nostalgic reference did you pick this time?"

"Well--"

A thwap to the head.

"Hey, Major."

Ben Rabbotou.  Master of stealth and the sneak attack.

"Nice.  Aki from Samurai Jane?"

Benny nodded.

"Ahem...as I was saying, I'm--

\*ZOOM\*

"Hey guys!"

"Sully!"

"And Lucas!"

This was shaping up to be a grand Halloween.

"Black Pantheress' general from the movie, Sullivan?  Nice."

"And that ecomancer from Pirates of the Dark Water...Tura or something like that?  Good fit, Lucas."

"I'M FREAKIN' DEADPOOL!!!"  Vinnie hollered.

"Uh...that's nice, Vin.  But...isn't Deadpool a--"

"Don't give me guff about gender-swapping."

Why do I feel like there's an unwritten irony here that I wasn't appreciating?

"By the way, I didn't ask who you were, Asriella?"

"Oh!  That's right!  I hope you don't mind but I dressed as your mentor, Dr. Evette L. Brown, the creator of the Delorean Time Machine."

"You make a great mad scientist, Azzie!"

"Nah.  Not mad.  Just a little eccentric.  But you would know better than anyone."

"Good point."

"Pit's coming as Dr. Elaine Spengler, your other mentor.  That cool?"

"Icy, goat daughter.  Icy."

And so the festivities went on.  And it wouldn't be a party without the birthday she-wolf of honor.

"Awesome costume, Joan!  You really outdid yourself."

"That's my daughter-in-law."  I shrugged.  Joan didn't answer.  She was busy stuffing her face to talk about her costume.

Spoiler.  She came as Michelle Meyers from the Halloween movies.

The night wasn't without its incidents, though.  Chameleon of course made the mistake of...well...let's not explain in detail.

Was it any suprise that King Brock managed to fling her have way across town into a dumpster.  With any luck, she'd be able to walk again by next Halloween.

Antoinette was showing signs of improvement thanks to Goat Daughter's assistance eer year.

Alfina Dente...managed to lower the bar.  And her own expected level of dignity.

I don't think anyone was surprised that she didn't even qualify for the booby prize.

Special consideration went to Emperor Fred and Empress Frieda.  Despite Vin being a rabbit...oddly enough the mother was the panda while the father was the rabbit.  Weird.

But who am I to question how genetics works?  Oh yeah...that's Vin's job.  What was my point again?

"Hey!  Max!  Gizmo!  You guys look great!"

"We came as our favorite characters from that anime Vin showed us."

"Oh yeah...Gunsmith something or other."

"That's the one."

Admittedly there was an irony about something with cats in the title as being played by two mice.  It's all relative, isn't it?

Kitten the Cat was there, stirring up her usual brand of harmless chaos.  At least until Alfina Dente was tricked into saying her real name.

Now we had ice cream to go with our trick-or-treat candy...and Dente was stuck with the bill repair bill and the hospital bill the ice cream company had waiting the next day.

"Pat!"  Actually short for Patricia.  Our resident archangel had come as well.

"Hi, Asriella!"

"Your cousin still in the doghouse?"

"Kinda...ish...depends on how you think Hera would deal with him losing all my power weapons."

"Umm...I'm thinking he'll be spending a timeout with the Cerberus for a bit."  I folded my ears back.

"Eh-heh...if he's lucky."

"Anyway...I like the Hawk Girl costume.  Makes great use of your wings!"

"Thanks!"

And the night went on and on til' the wee hours of the morning.

Needless to say...a lot of people slept in.  And there were some closings as a result.

But things were back to normal beyond that.   It was a happy Halloween and a great birthday for Joan Talbain.

"Well?"  Violet looked up from her laptop.

I sighed.  "It gets a pass.  It's not the worst thing you ever wrote.

"I know right!  I got these ideas for Thanksgiving--"

"Don't push it, Aunt Vi.  He cut you enough slack as it is."

"I do not wish to break my tessan fans over your head to keep you in line."

"Awww.  You guys are no fun."

"Also.  We're in the middle of our OWN Halloween party.  Better get moving or Jon will eat up all the treats before we get there."  Mitzi warned.

"So what are we all coming as?"

"I called dibs on Magnum P.I.  It got rebooted earlier this year.  Besides I want to do something with that collection of those Hawaiian shirts Mitzi inherited when she opened her place in Fechter's Drycleaning."

"I'm totally coming as Pipimi from Pop Team Epic."

"Aren't you a little short for that, Vi?  Maybe you should pick Popuko, instead."

"Hey!"

"I'm was thinking Parcival from Ready Player One..."  Asriel said as we exited the lab and headed out.

"Will we have time to get our costumes together?"

"I wouldn't worry about that.  Some recent missions taught us the art of quick-change..."

Granted this was a short entry but with Violet writing most of it just to fill space (despite my protests), even short logs can have a lot of happy wrapped up in them.

For now with the peace being what it was, I'd put my worries aside.  For soon the crew and I would be headed off to the Underground.  Toriel remained.  And I was long overdue to re-ignite our friendship.  Maybe...maybe this time we could get her to forgive Asgore.  Maybe.

But for now...

Happy Halloween, readers!

CRYPTOSMASHER LOGOFF

END TRANSMISSION...

Chapter 23

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