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Description
[]-----[]CHAPTER 2[]-----[]

Mega hardly noticed the sunrise barely breaking over the horizon as he stepped foot onto the lawn of his home. He had intended to go through the front door, sneak up to his room and hope that neither Rush or Roll were awake to greet him. Instead he found that the idea of even remotely encountering anyone after his talk with Protoman was unbearable. Instead he snuck to the back of the house and climbed slowly up a nearby tree. Bracing himself, he leapt onto the balcony of his room with only the faintest din announcing his presence, he had no worry about the security alarm going off; it recognized his particular presence and would leave any traps deactivated. mega opened the balcony door to his room – mentally criticizing himself for having left it unlocked in the first place – and stepped inside with a tired sigh.

The small therapeutic vacation he had taken was now all for nothing; with one sentence Protoman had ruined any sense of peace it had given him and left him again at edge. “I don’t understand…” he muttered as he dropped his empty pack on the floor and flopped tiredly onto his bed. “Why do I feel this way?” Mega took a glance around his room as his thoughts lingered on his brothers words. His room was large in comparison to an average one, filled with everything a teenage boy could dream of: video game systems complete with huge libraries of games, comics of varying nationalities, books of every subject he was interested in, the latest in home computers, complete with high speed Internet and a subscription to his favorite MMO, a stereo and entertainment system with full surround sound... There was so much here, and it was all his. Every part of the room had his touch to it; from the disarray of clothing in the corner, to the posters on the wall. His father had never limited him, sometimes he'd "tut" in disapproval at the hard rock he’d listen to, but he never stopped him. Never told him “no” once. Of course... his father didn’t know about the things he kept hidden.

Megaman felt a guilty uneasiness in the pit of his stomach whenever he thought about the box behind his suit case and weight sets. The only thing he’s ever kept from his family. His mind wandered to the contents and how it all began:

It was a wonderfully sunny day and Wily’s goon squad had been quiet for some time now. Mega knew that would only mean trouble down the line for him, but until then he wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet. One of his favorite things to do was go to the mall and into the bookstore while Roll ran off to the nearby Boutique shop. He always had a thing for graphic novels, both American comics and their oriental counterparts “mangas”, and today there was suppose to be a new shipment. A new section had been made since the last time he had been here and his curiosity led him to it. What he found was a section labeled “mature” and something quite shocking.

Mega had seen action packed comics before, ones where the hero leaps from the rooftops and struck down at their foes with righteous fury and justice; he had never seen things like –THIS-. At first glance Mega was repulsed by them, page one of the comic he picked up already had more blood spilled along the blade of the killer than he ever thought the human body could contain. These were clearly stories that were meant to be a thin cover or excuse for gratuitous amounts of violence and death. The terrible grin on the humans face on that page, his tongue protruded and letting the gore from his drenched blade drip upon it sent genuine shivers down Mega’s spine...

Mega remembered setting the book down and looking around uncomfortably; people passed him by without a glance, but his face burned with embarrassment, as if he had seen something he should never have and would at any moment be caught by someone he knew. He left that area quickly, forgetting the normal comics he had intended on purchasing on the shelf next to the Mature section.
He left; but returned the next day to purchase the violent book.

The following night after the purchase Mega spent the time trying to reason to himself the sudden interest in the book. At first he tried to tell himself that it interest him because of it’s artistic value; true the art was beautifully done with masterful amounts of details, but he could not deny that the quality only made the gore on the pages so much worse to bear. He then tried to tell himself that he could not believe that something this graphic could not have a profound story to go with the violence, that surely justice would be brought to the anti-hero and the end result would be peace. Instead, he found his eyes blurred to the words and instead focusing on the pictures. Transfixed by the atrocities masterfully captured on the pages and feeling a strange new sensation in his body, an almost swelling ache in his chest that defied his ability recognize the emotion. It caused him to feel a terrible sensation similar to guilt, but added an eerie thrill with it. He was haunted by the acts, but secretly craved more. So again, he returned to the book store.

Dr. Light had never questioned the use of money from his children. He knew them reasonable and sound in their decisions, and he was funded by the government on several of his projects. Money was never an issue and thus he never looked at his spending expenses, nor those of Mega or Roll. Maybe if he had, he would have noticed a spike in Megaman’s purchases. Though not nearly in the hundreds of dollars nor even close to Roll’s boutique shopping bill, Mega had essentially tripled his purchases. All at the bookstore. All very suddenly.

Soon after his collection began to grow he discovered that the particular story that had started all this had been made into a live action movie. He had been sitting in the living room with his family one evening when the advertisement came on TV. His father had frowned, shaking his head in disappointment that people still enjoyed this type of nonsense. Roll had turned away from the TV, she squeezed a nearby pillow to her chest and cringed; evidently the small prime time friendly bits of gore were far too much for her. “Gross!” she had exclaimed. “Who’d wanna watch a movie about such a horrible thing?!”
Mega’s eye’s never left the television.

When the movie was released he had decided to take in a midnight screening. Feigning that he was tired and wanted to sleep he bid his family goodnight and went to his room somewhat early in the evening. Once he was sure they were not going to disturb him, he climbed out his window and headed towards the nearest bus stop. Once there he sat on the furthest corner seat he could find and kept his head down. Being dressed in something other than his armor seemed to make people not recognize him, however an outfit of light colored jeans, a white shirt and a white hoodie was certainly out of place in this viewing. There was an overabundance of black wearing gothic teens and gore buffs in the theatre who were rowdy and noisy enough to set Mega’s nerves on end. He pretended to ignore the whispers he heard on occasion over his outfit and the snickering; kids will be kids after all and he did feel kind of silly, considering the event.

The movie was – as expected with that type of movie - a big disappointment when compared to the original media. Bad actors, rewritten storyline and terrible 3D effects made mega wince at every turn, but if there was one thing, and one thing alone it delivered; it was the gore. Although obviously fake, it was realistic enough to make it's fans cheer and whoop whenever an explosion of violence turned the screen red. Mega was the single exception to this, he tried not to let any outward emotion come through, despite his heart pounding in his chest and his mind racing with the thrill of violence. The faintest trace of a smile touched his lips near the end, when the supposed "hero" of the story finally paid for his crimes against the innocents; something that had not occurred in the comics he had read. The screen went red again and the maniacal laughter of a dying man pierced his senses and almost drove him to what he could only describe as blissful madness. Then the movie was over, and the hissing and booing began by the faithful fans of the original storyline. As Mega walked home from the movies he wondered about the mentality of those people. Were they upset that the “hero” of the story, the murderer and sadist finally got what he deserved? Or were they merely upset at the creative liberties done by the director?

What did he himself feel?

The current world swam back into Megaman’s view, and he shook his head tiredly. It had all started with that book, from there things just became more complicated. Mega stood up and moved to his closet, he shoved his weight set and suitcase away and reached for the box. He frowned at it’s weight; he was genuinely surprised at how much he had collected in such a short amount of time. He reached into it carefully, determined to avoid seeing the media, what he was after was on top of all that. Inside was a shoe box tied with a simple piece of string, Mega untied it and opened it. Inside was a small collection of papers and photos. Protoman’s sneering face looked up from the box and Mega frowned deeper. He shifted the papers to the side and reached under them for the item he craved to hold, a torn yellow piece of fabric; a keepsake of Protoman’s scarf.

“You’re always doing this to me,” he sighed wearily as he sat down on the ground. “Always making me second guess myself. I’m not like you, and they can’t possibly be as bad as you say they are…” He clutched at the soft material. “Why?” he whispered. “Why can’t you just stop doing this and understand?”

“Maybe I understand better than you do, Mega Bro.”

Megaman could almost hear his brother’s coy response.

“Maybe you’re just blind. You might live with the good doctor, but what does he hide from you? How do you think he’d feel if he knew what you kept in that little box of yours, hm? Do ya think he’d just forgive you for it? Nah, I bet he’d reprogram you back into that ‘good bot’ he wanted. That obedient little servant of his… ha! And you’d let him, wouldn’t you? He wouldn’t want you to become too much like me, but that’s already too late, isn’t it?”

“No,” Mega whispered fearfully. “You’re wrong… you’re wrong about everything! He would never… never do that to me…”

“Are you really so sure, brother?”

Mega closed his eyes in defeat, he knew the answer was no. He didn’t know for certain. He doubted his father and the rest of his family would understand. He didn’t even understand it. His dark little box of secrets, of emotions he could not explain, could not bring himself to accept without guilt. No, of course they wouldn’t understand.

But Protoman would.

The realization tore at him with such force that he could not stop the cry of sorrow that escaped his lips. His brother would understand, he would even condone. He had even considered showing Proto the box in the brief time he had stayed here. Those brief wonderful days. He wished it hadn’t been a lie, a terrible trap that had more success than either Wily or Protoman understood. Mega had let him in close, he had laughed with him and fought together with him. He remembered Protoman’s arm around his shoulder in the park, and the overwhelming sensation of happiness his presence caused suddenly. He wanted it back more than anyone could imagine. Without it nothing felt right anymore. Protoman had hurt him, hurt him terribly. He remembered the feeling of betrayal, like a fiery needle; piercing through his chest, paralyzing him with such an abundance of sorrow.

Megaman buried his face in the soft fabric of the scarf piece and felt the warm tears soak into it. He wept for the first time in his life.

He felt truly alone.

-------

No video for this one, did it on a whim.

So we're delving a bit deeper into why Mega's all emotionally screwed up so 'suddenly'. What an emo. This is probably the part im the most worried about because it's taking a step towards a darker personality on a character that seems like he'd poop out rays of sunshine and pink bunnies.

Don't worry guys, he's not gonna find a black ..uh.. e-tank or something. Mega's too cool for that shits, he's just gonna listen to Linkin Park, and wish Proto wasn't such a dick.

PS: That Magnet Man is just for you. Yeah, you know who you are.

Description
[]-----[]CHAPTER 2[]-----[]

Mega hardly noticed the sunrise barely breaking over the horizon as he stepped foot onto the lawn of his home. He had intended to go through the front door, sneak up to his room and hope that neither Rush or Roll were awake to greet him. Instead he found that the idea of even remotely encountering anyone after his talk with Protoman was unbearable. Instead he snuck to the back of the house and climbed slowly up a nearby tree. Bracing himself, he leapt onto the balcony of his room with only the faintest din announcing his presence, he had no worry about the security alarm going off; it recognized his particular presence and would leave any traps deactivated. mega opened the balcony door to his room – mentally criticizing himself for having left it unlocked in the first place – and stepped inside with a tired sigh.

The small therapeutic vacation he had taken was now all for nothing; with one sentence Protoman had ruined any sense of peace it had given him and left him again at edge. “I don’t understand…” he muttered as he dropped his empty pack on the floor and flopped tiredly onto his bed. “Why do I feel this way?” Mega took a glance around his room as his thoughts lingered on his brothers words. His room was large in comparison to an average one, filled with everything a teenage boy could dream of: video game systems complete with huge libraries of games, comics of varying nationalities, books of every subject he was interested in, the latest in home computers, complete with high speed Internet and a subscription to his favorite MMO, a stereo and entertainment system with full surround sound... There was so much here, and it was all his. Every part of the room had his touch to it; from the disarray of clothing in the corner, to the posters on the wall. His father had never limited him, sometimes he'd "tut" in disapproval at the hard rock he’d listen to, but he never stopped him. Never told him “no” once. Of course... his father didn’t know about the things he kept hidden.

Megaman felt a guilty uneasiness in the pit of his stomach whenever he thought about the box behind his suit case and weight sets. The only thing he’s ever kept from his family. His mind wandered to the contents and how it all began:

It was a wonderfully sunny day and Wily’s goon squad had been quiet for some time now. Mega knew that would only mean trouble down the line for him, but until then he wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet. One of his favorite things to do was go to the mall and into the bookstore while Roll ran off to the nearby Boutique shop. He always had a thing for graphic novels, both American comics and their oriental counterparts “mangas”, and today there was suppose to be a new shipment. A new section had been made since the last time he had been here and his curiosity led him to it. What he found was a section labeled “mature” and something quite shocking.

Mega had seen action packed comics before, ones where the hero leaps from the rooftops and struck down at their foes with righteous fury and justice; he had never seen things like –THIS-. At first glance Mega was repulsed by them, page one of the comic he picked up already had more blood spilled along the blade of the killer than he ever thought the human body could contain. These were clearly stories that were meant to be a thin cover or excuse for gratuitous amounts of violence and death. The terrible grin on the humans face on that page, his tongue protruded and letting the gore from his drenched blade drip upon it sent genuine shivers down Mega’s spine...

Mega remembered setting the book down and looking around uncomfortably; people passed him by without a glance, but his face burned with embarrassment, as if he had seen something he should never have and would at any moment be caught by someone he knew. He left that area quickly, forgetting the normal comics he had intended on purchasing on the shelf next to the Mature section.
He left; but returned the next day to purchase the violent book.

The following night after the purchase Mega spent the time trying to reason to himself the sudden interest in the book. At first he tried to tell himself that it interest him because of it’s artistic value; true the art was beautifully done with masterful amounts of details, but he could not deny that the quality only made the gore on the pages so much worse to bear. He then tried to tell himself that he could not believe that something this graphic could not have a profound story to go with the violence, that surely justice would be brought to the anti-hero and the end result would be peace. Instead, he found his eyes blurred to the words and instead focusing on the pictures. Transfixed by the atrocities masterfully captured on the pages and feeling a strange new sensation in his body, an almost swelling ache in his chest that defied his ability recognize the emotion. It caused him to feel a terrible sensation similar to guilt, but added an eerie thrill with it. He was haunted by the acts, but secretly craved more. So again, he returned to the book store.

Dr. Light had never questioned the use of money from his children. He knew them reasonable and sound in their decisions, and he was funded by the government on several of his projects. Money was never an issue and thus he never looked at his spending expenses, nor those of Mega or Roll. Maybe if he had, he would have noticed a spike in Megaman’s purchases. Though not nearly in the hundreds of dollars nor even close to Roll’s boutique shopping bill, Mega had essentially tripled his purchases. All at the bookstore. All very suddenly.

Soon after his collection began to grow he discovered that the particular story that had started all this had been made into a live action movie. He had been sitting in the living room with his family one evening when the advertisement came on TV. His father had frowned, shaking his head in disappointment that people still enjoyed this type of nonsense. Roll had turned away from the TV, she squeezed a nearby pillow to her chest and cringed; evidently the small prime time friendly bits of gore were far too much for her. “Gross!” she had exclaimed. “Who’d wanna watch a movie about such a horrible thing?!”
Mega’s eye’s never left the television.

When the movie was released he had decided to take in a midnight screening. Feigning that he was tired and wanted to sleep he bid his family goodnight and went to his room somewhat early in the evening. Once he was sure they were not going to disturb him, he climbed out his window and headed towards the nearest bus stop. Once there he sat on the furthest corner seat he could find and kept his head down. Being dressed in something other than his armor seemed to make people not recognize him, however an outfit of light colored jeans, a white shirt and a white hoodie was certainly out of place in this viewing. There was an overabundance of black wearing gothic teens and gore buffs in the theatre who were rowdy and noisy enough to set Mega’s nerves on end. He pretended to ignore the whispers he heard on occasion over his outfit and the snickering; kids will be kids after all and he did feel kind of silly, considering the event.

The movie was – as expected with that type of movie - a big disappointment when compared to the original media. Bad actors, rewritten storyline and terrible 3D effects made mega wince at every turn, but if there was one thing, and one thing alone it delivered; it was the gore. Although obviously fake, it was realistic enough to make it's fans cheer and whoop whenever an explosion of violence turned the screen red. Mega was the single exception to this, he tried not to let any outward emotion come through, despite his heart pounding in his chest and his mind racing with the thrill of violence. The faintest trace of a smile touched his lips near the end, when the supposed "hero" of the story finally paid for his crimes against the innocents; something that had not occurred in the comics he had read. The screen went red again and the maniacal laughter of a dying man pierced his senses and almost drove him to what he could only describe as blissful madness. Then the movie was over, and the hissing and booing began by the faithful fans of the original storyline. As Mega walked home from the movies he wondered about the mentality of those people. Were they upset that the “hero” of the story, the murderer and sadist finally got what he deserved? Or were they merely upset at the creative liberties done by the director?

What did he himself feel?

The current world swam back into Megaman’s view, and he shook his head tiredly. It had all started with that book, from there things just became more complicated. Mega stood up and moved to his closet, he shoved his weight set and suitcase away and reached for the box. He frowned at it’s weight; he was genuinely surprised at how much he had collected in such a short amount of time. He reached into it carefully, determined to avoid seeing the media, what he was after was on top of all that. Inside was a shoe box tied with a simple piece of string, Mega untied it and opened it. Inside was a small collection of papers and photos. Protoman’s sneering face looked up from the box and Mega frowned deeper. He shifted the papers to the side and reached under them for the item he craved to hold, a torn yellow piece of fabric; a keepsake of Protoman’s scarf.

“You’re always doing this to me,” he sighed wearily as he sat down on the ground. “Always making me second guess myself. I’m not like you, and they can’t possibly be as bad as you say they are…” He clutched at the soft material. “Why?” he whispered. “Why can’t you just stop doing this and understand?”

“Maybe I understand better than you do, Mega Bro.”

Megaman could almost hear his brother’s coy response.

“Maybe you’re just blind. You might live with the good doctor, but what does he hide from you? How do you think he’d feel if he knew what you kept in that little box of yours, hm? Do ya think he’d just forgive you for it? Nah, I bet he’d reprogram you back into that ‘good bot’ he wanted. That obedient little servant of his… ha! And you’d let him, wouldn’t you? He wouldn’t want you to become too much like me, but that’s already too late, isn’t it?”

“No,” Mega whispered fearfully. “You’re wrong… you’re wrong about everything! He would never… never do that to me…”

“Are you really so sure, brother?”

Mega closed his eyes in defeat, he knew the answer was no. He didn’t know for certain. He doubted his father and the rest of his family would understand. He didn’t even understand it. His dark little box of secrets, of emotions he could not explain, could not bring himself to accept without guilt. No, of course they wouldn’t understand.

But Protoman would.

The realization tore at him with such force that he could not stop the cry of sorrow that escaped his lips. His brother would understand, he would even condone. He had even considered showing Proto the box in the brief time he had stayed here. Those brief wonderful days. He wished it hadn’t been a lie, a terrible trap that had more success than either Wily or Protoman understood. Mega had let him in close, he had laughed with him and fought together with him. He remembered Protoman’s arm around his shoulder in the park, and the overwhelming sensation of happiness his presence caused suddenly. He wanted it back more than anyone could imagine. Without it nothing felt right anymore. Protoman had hurt him, hurt him terribly. He remembered the feeling of betrayal, like a fiery needle; piercing through his chest, paralyzing him with such an abundance of sorrow.

Megaman buried his face in the soft fabric of the scarf piece and felt the warm tears soak into it. He wept for the first time in his life.

He felt truly alone.

-------

No video for this one, did it on a whim.

So we're delving a bit deeper into why Mega's all emotionally screwed up so 'suddenly'. What an emo. This is probably the part im the most worried about because it's taking a step towards a darker personality on a character that seems like he'd poop out rays of sunshine and pink bunnies.

Don't worry guys, he's not gonna find a black ..uh.. e-tank or something. Mega's too cool for that shits, he's just gonna listen to Linkin Park, and wish Proto wasn't such a dick.

PS: That Magnet Man is just for you. Yeah, you know who you are.