MEGAMAN X: THE SERIES


SEASON ONE: Poles Apart
EPISODE THIRTEEN: "Old As They Say"

  Author's Note: Ah, so begins the emotionless part that is X13.  Sorry guys, but I'm not gonna be emotionally packed all the time.  Deal with it.  In other news, I won't pick up Roll's scene until later...I have something more relevant to the storyline to deal with first.  Hopefully it won't throw you off too much, but I recommend re-reading X-Chapter 3 if you've forgotten it.
Also, I want to thank Hannah Sears for giving me her middle name.  It's so beautiful, I've decided to name another main character after her.  Hannah, if you do mind, I will change her name.  Otherwise, the new main character's name is Evelyn.

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"Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away." - Marcus Aurelius.


  "Wow!  Rock, I still think you're soooo cool!" shrilled the little girl in delight.  Rock was sitting in a chair next to a mirror in the Green Room at the local theatre.  He was wearing a Catholic school uniform which Dr. Light insisted would make the presentation in front of the Committee a lot easier.  The little girl was wearing a green dress, and she was quite tiny at such a young impressionable age of six years old.

  The Green Room was small with a coffee table and a number of chairs as well as a full-length mirror.  The Green Room lead out into the backstage where all the technical equipment was set up for the spotlights used in the demonstration.  The backstage was covered by a black curtain which stretched between both offstage areas.  The stage itself was wooden and painted black with a small wooden podium off to one side.  Stairs lead up to the onstage off the red carpeted floor that was the rest of the theatre, highlighted by the red curtains drawn back in the front of the stage.  The blue chairs numbered in the hundreds as they lead constantly upwards towards the back of the theatre.  The red carpeting followed the chairs upwards in long drawn-out steps.  Exit doors were backstage as well as near the onstage and the back of the theatre which then lead into an intermission area.

  "Thank you, Evelyn." replied Rock.  He was running preliminary diagnostics as Dr. Light had suggested before he would show up and give Rock a proper check-up before the presentation.  Evelyn, Dr. Light's niece, had shown up about 15 minutes ago.  She had come by before with her parents when Dr. Light wanted to show off the short blue-haired android.  Rock had noted that 
he had received what could be considered negative reviews, considering that Evelyn's parents seemed uneasy around him.  He was unsure as to why, perhaps it was a question better left for a human like Dr. Light.

  Evelyn and Rock had just finished a discussion over his construction.  She was so surprised by Rock's skin which had a cold, plastic feeling to it.  She didn't understand what he was the first time they met, but she understood now.  He was a friend.

  "So are you, like, super-strong like Wonder Woman?" asked Evelyn with a giggle.

  "All information will be available during the presentation in 33 minutes, 17 seconds," replied Rock.

  "Cool!  I want front-row, that's my favorite!" said the little girl quickly.

Before Rock could answer, Dr. Light and Dr. Wily walked through the door.

"Alright Rock!  Are you ready for the show of your life?" asked Dr. Light with a smile.  He was obviously happy, and with good reason.  The month of tests on Rock's system had finally ended, and they had used that technology to prepare six more test androids, programmed with various complex abilities to handle tasks unsuitable for a human being.  Tonight would be the night that they are either accepted or rejected by the local science community.  Dr. Light knew there was no danger of rejection since he had received many kind words about his work.  Unfortunately, his own brother, Terence, didn't seem so pleased.

"Ouch, shoot!" groaned Dr. Wily, holding onto his lower back.

"Richard, you gonna be okay?" asked Dr. Light. "Is that injury acting up again?"

Dr. Wily winced in pain and replied, "No...I'll be fine.  I'm gonna go sit down outside for a bit."

Evelyn looked up at Dr. Light with a bit of frightened wonder in her eyes.

"Uncle Tommy, what's wrong with your friend?" she asked innocently.

"Just a back injury a few years ago, that's all," replied Dr. Light.  "That accident we had a month ago is causing it to act up again."

"Is he gonna be okay?" his niece asked again.

"Oh yeah!  He's a tough guy, don't let the grey hair fool you.  He'll be back to normal in a few weeks, no problem."

Evelyn sat down on the floor and looked up as Dr. Light removed Rock's shirt.  He was kneeling down, and fiddling with a lock of some sort.  Rock sat there, expressionless.

"What'cha doin'?" asked the little girl.  Dr. Light turned back and smiled.  He motioned for her to come up closer.  Evelyn stood up and took a closer look at the control panel on Rock's chest.

"Watch this," whispered Dr. Light.  He fiddled with the electronic lock some more before the panel slowly swung open.  Evelyn saw an entire array of wires and weird green cards and remained speechless with her mouth wide open.  Dr. Light was holding a palm pilot in the other hand and hooked a cable from Rock's chest into the back of his own tiny computer.

"What are you doing to him?" whispered Evelyn slowly.

"Doing a...uh...physical check-up of Rock," replied Dr. Light, his smile getting a bit wider.

"Are you sure?  Dr. Farrell never did this to me.  He always used that cold stetascope thing." said Evelyn.

Dr. Light just chuckled as he checked over the returned results.  He knew that his niece was extremely intelligent and learned quickly.  She still had that quirky child-like naievity though, which Thomas found refreshing, considering he was always surrounded by a panel of scientists.

"Well...Rock's a bit different from you and I," said Dr. Light.  Evelyn just looked on in silence until Dr. Light unhooked the cable and locked the panel back into place.

"Well, Rock, it looks like everything is just perfect," said Dr. Light as he put his palm pilot back in his white labcoat.  Dr. Light turned and kneeled down to face Evelyn.

"Hey, I'm gonna go set up the props onstage, you wanna come and help your uncle?"

"Sure!" said Evelyn happily.  She was always glad to help her uncle, just because he was so nice about it and always seemed to have a cookie on him.  Dr. Light took her hand and looked back at Rock.

"Rock, go find Richard and tell him we're gonna start soon," he said.  Dr. Light reached into his pocket and pulled out a chocolate chip cookie.  He gave it to Evelyn who smiled and laughed.

"Uncle Tommy, how do you always do that?" asked Evelyn as she took the cookie.  They began walking out the door into the stagelights outside the Green Room.

"Can't tell you.  Trade secret of all uncles, sorry," said Dr. Light with a mocking serious tone.
"Evelyn, I know you came here after school to watch the demonstration--"

"I like Rock, he's really nice," she replied, munching on the cookie.

"Well...how would you like to be a bit closer than first row?" asked Dr. Light.

***

  The area far backstage was dimly lit.  Rock adjusted his vision to compensate for the darkness. Dr. Wily was in the back and he had his own palm pilot connected to one of the androids.  However, even from this distance Rock could tell that Dr. Wily was adjusting the programming of the Main Library for the android.  All six androids had an identical metallic sheen in nature, although one was a bit wider than the others.  Other than that one, they all looked like replicas of Rock himself.

"There we go, that's three of them now," whispered Dr. Wily to himself.  Rock continued watching, knowing that it would be rude to interrupt the doctor before his work was finished.  Rock was curious as to why their programming needed adjusting at the last moment.  Perhaps Dr. Wily was just making some final touches on the machines; Dr. Light had suggested that humans have the tendency to never leave something alone and have to keep fiddling with it.

Rock continued waiting patiently, and noted that Dr. Wily's back didn't seem to be bothering him too much right now.  He was leaning over the androids after all and wasn't showing any signs of pain.

"There...all done!" whispered Dr. Wily a few minutes later.  He had just finished his check-up on the last android.  It was then that Rock took the moment to tell Dr. Wily the message.

"Dr. Wily, we are going to start the demonstration soon," said Rock, startling Dr. Wily a bit.  The old man turned around quickly, but his face was quickly softened.

"Hello there Rock, I have a few things I'd like to fix with you."

"I have already received a check-up by Dr. Light and the demonstration will soon start."

"Oh," said Dr. Wily, a bit dejected.  "Well, it won't matter for the presentation anyway, so we'll do it later."

"Sir, is your back injury feeling better now?" inquired Rock.

Dr. Wily took his gaze off the floor and smiled.

"Yeah...Yeah, I'm feeling a bit better now.  I'm still not 100% though, why not give me a hand with these androids."

Rock walked over and picked up two of the androids, one in each hand.  Dr. Wily chuckled at the young bot's strength.  Rock then left to bring them to the offstage position with the rest of Dr. Light's props.

***

"Welcome, ladies & gentlemen, to the presentation of the first functional android of the present day.  As of June 16th, 2030, a new machine will be the way of the digital future!" said Dr. Light enthusiastically.  He had waited so long for this day, Rock knew.  Rock was sitting on the stool, waiting for commands from Dr. Light.  He had gathered from the last month of their testing his knowledge and programming that both Dr. Light and Dr. Wily were excited as they saw their "son come to life", as they put it.  After Rock chose the male gender, they had continued programming him with the thoughts that a young boy would have.  They had inputted the same curiousity and fledgling naievity into his programming as a child.  Of course, Rock felt many limitations in his programming and did not feel naive simply because he had the past 40 years of history completely stored in memory, among other things.  Still, the two doctors were working to make Rock flawlessly human in almost every way.

The presentation continued, Dr. Light was discussing how his research came about and the backgrounds of both him and Dr. Wily.  The theatre was nearly full of scientists and military personnel.  Of course, people without military access were not allowed on the premises and the guards at the exits would make sure of this.  Rock looked over at Evelyn, who was sitting on the stool beside him.  She was allowed not only because she was part of the demonstration, but she was well known to many people at the facility, because her father worked there as a high-ranking officer.  Rock knew this well, because Dr. Light had received the chance for his research with the help of his brother, whom had connections in the military.  Rock knew that Dr. Light was extremely grateful for it and kept stressing about how to make it up to his brother in the future whenever Rock delighted him with another simulated human quirk.

Evelyn leaned over a bit and whispered.

"Umm...What's he talking about?"

Dr. Light had his arms wildly gestering over a chalkboard.  Rock zoomed in on the chalkboard and realized his scematics.  Dr. Wily was frantically drawing on the board trying to keep up with Dr. Light's ecstatically rushed words.

"They just finished talking about their fourty year background in Robot Kinetics.  Now they're talking about my specifications," said Rock simply back to her.

"I don't understand," asked Evelyn. "What does that all mean?"

"They're talking about me."

"Oohhh, I see," said Evelyn and went back staring at the audience.

A few more moments passed.  Dr. Light's voice ranged high and low pitches frequently because he was obviously very excited about what he was talking about.  Rock listened as they explained his physical, as well as mental capabilities.  Rock could see a lot of confusion spread over the crowd, as many of the scientists and all of the military personnel wrinkled their brows attempting to decipher the inordinately complex graphs which Dr. Wily was drawing on the board.

"...But enough of this silly complicated stuff," said Dr. Light, clapping his hands together. "I know you're all here to see what Rock is truly capable of.  Before I start, are there any questions?"

The audience stirred a bit.  A man in the back raised his hand and posed his question.

"Excuse me, but which child is Rock?" he asked.

"Good question!" said Dr. Light in glee. "I've left it ambiguous on purpose.  How about you tell me which one Rock is?  Can we have any volunteers?"

The audience began to murmur, unfamiliar with the unorthodox presentation.  Normally this was not the way a scientific demonstration would occur, Rock knew that simply from all the science lectures he had recorded in memory.  A number of people stood up and walked up on stage.

"Alright," said Dr. Light, "a few brave souls.  You can ask them any questions you wish, but I won't make this too easy for you."

Dr. Light turned to face the two children.  Without looking at either one of them he said, "Rock, emulate the other child as best you can."

Rock realized that he would have to copy the intelligence of a twelve year old child, as Dr. Light had suggested earlier, given his physical appearance.  One of the older gentlemen in a business suit bent down and began talking to Evelyn.

"So, little lady, what do you like to do after school?" asked the old man.

Evelyn looked up and smiled. 

"I like playing with my friend here," she said, not giving out Rock's name as the game was supposed to go.

"And what about you, young man?" asked the man again.

"Well, I enjoy playing ball with my friends at the schoolyard."

The questions continued, ranging from school to family.  Rock simply recalled the instruction program which Dr. Light had given him beforehand to answer about family.  Once the half-dozen scientists were satisfied, they stopped and Dr. Light came over.

"Alright, so how many think the girl is the android?" asked Dr. Light.

A few hands went up.  Evelyn started giggling, happy that she had managed to dupe a few of them.

"Actually, Rock is the young man there," said Dr. Light with a smile.  Some of the scientists gasped.

"Well, she certainly is an intelligent young lady!" said one of the scientists.

"Yes, that's why I picked her," responded Dr. Light.

"Much more intelligent than your average little girl!" another said.

Dr. Light laughed.  "Well, I'm sure Evelyn appreciates the compliments."

Evelyn giggled some more and jumped off the stool to take a bow.  The audience began to clap in approval to the humourous demonstration.  The scientists took their seats, shaking their heads all the way.  Now the demonstration was growing popular and many hands shot up to ask questions after the noise died down.  Dr. Light motioned for one to answer.

"Can you demonstrate the physical and mental capabilities of Rock now?"

Dr. Light raised his hands in approval and nodded.

"Certainly.  Unfortunately the stage limits some physical capabilities, however I have prepared to demonstrate strength and reflexes.  Richard, if you please," Dr. Light motioned for Dr. Wily to begin the physical demonstration.  Dr. Wily pressed a button on a panel at the podium on the righthand side of the stage.  Part of the black floor opened up and a large metal block rose up to the level of the rest of the stage.

"Ladies & Gentlemen, this block weighs approximately five tonnes and is a five foot cubic square with handles indented along the sides," said Dr. Wily with a coy smile.  "But don't take my word for it."

Immediately, ten strong men walked onto the stage, each without a shirt.  Their bodysizes were impressive and their muscles were massive.  Dr. Light had attended a Strong Man competition two weeks prior, in order to find some volunteers for this part of the demonstration.  The men were happy to do it with enough pay, for they didn't believe that such a small boy could do this tremendous feat.

"Gentlemen, if you please," Dr. Wily motioned them to the cube.  "Ladies & Gentlemen, these men have been known to pull airplanes with their teeth.  Observe."

The ten men surrounded the cube.  Even at half a tonne per man, this would be a difficult lift for the bulky strangers.  They each reached into the handles which were indented along the sides of the cube.  The straining and groaning began as the cube was slowly lifted off the ground.  Veins became visible across the mens' necks and foreheads.  Sweat began to pour down their red faces as they strained to lift it higher.  It was visibly obvious that this was a nearly impossible task for the ten men.

"Rock, could you please lend them a hand?" asked Dr. Wily.  Rock nodded and slowly walked over to the cube.  The ten men stopped and put the cube down, massaging their arm muscles and wincing from the pain.  Rock grabbed two of the handles and lifted the cube over his head in one motion. The audience gasped and began clapping immediately.  The ten men were stupified at the little kid's effortless action.

"Note that the endoskeletal structure of Rock is superior to the penetration of a heavy artillery shell," started Dr. Wily. "We have used a malleable titanium ceramic in order to construct his endoskeleton, as well as weaving his bones with an ionic compound which simulates the complexity of an organic molecular structure.  This allows him to strain excessive amounts against denser materials than that of his own body."

The audience gasped as Rock began tearing the cube apart.  The metal screamed in agony as it was quickly torn in half.  Rock put down both halves of the cube on the floor and took a bow.

"Impressive as usual, Rock," said Dr. Wily, clapping his hands with the audience.

"By inputting raw carbonic plasma into his system," started Dr. Light, "His endoskeletal structure will reconstruct itself on it's own.  It uses a complex plasma conversion system which was designed for enhanced accuracy in matter-energy transmissions such as annular confinement teleportation."

Dr. Light walked across stage with his back to Dr. Wily and came up from behind Rock.

"Also," added Dr. Wily, "We have incorporated an impressive reaction system which allows for reflexes that are within 2 nanoseconds." 

Before Dr. Wily even finished the sentence, he pulled a gun out of his side pocket and shot directly at Dr. Light.  The audience gasped, but neither Rock nor Dr. Light flinched.  The bullet had impacted the palm of Rock's right hand which immediately shot up to cover Dr. Light's face, the original target of the gun.  The bullet fell to the ground, compacted to half its original size.  The audience was certainly impressed.  Dr. Wily put the gun back in his side pocket.  Dr. Light looked at Rock with a smile.  He knew that last trick would certainly hook them for good on an android's usefulness in the workplace, which was covered in the second half of the demonstration.  A few seconds made all the difference in a dangerous situation.

"As for mental capabilities...well, why don't you guys yell out a few questions and see if he can answer them?" said Dr. Light, chuckling.  The scientific crowd was certainly impressed with Rock.

Questions came out, sometimes three or four at a time.  Rock siphoned the audio in order to store all of the questions.  He then began reading out his short-term databanks.

"2 and 2 is 4, the speed of light in a vacuum is 2.9998 x 10E8 m/s, Palmitic acid is a fatty acid and therefore has a COOH end with a long carbohydrate chain, the winner of SuperBowl 24 in 1990 was San Francisco at 55 points and Denver at 10, and yes, sir." Rock paused and looked at a specific individual.  "You wouldn't look very good in red, sir."

Immediately, the crowd broke out in applause, which was quite uncommon for a scientific presentation.  Rock took another bow and Dr. Light nodded to Dr. Wily to recover the other six androids from offstage.

"We will take a short break as we set up the second half of the demonstration," said Dr. Light to the crowd, which immediately broke out into mumbled discussions once the houselights came up.

***

The stagelights were dim and Rock had taken his place back on the stool.  Evelyn had been watching the entire time, now completely in awe of him.  Dr. Light was directing the ten men cleaning up the stage while Dr. Wily hauled the six androids from the offstage pile where Rock had left them.  Evelyn glanced at the androids and whispered to Rock.

"Hey...those guys look just like you."

"They are of the same design as I, yes," replied Rock.

"Wow...How come they look so weird without clothes on?" asked Evelyn, her curiousity growing.  Dr. Light shuffled over to stand behind the two children.

"Hello you two.  You've both done very nicely so far!  Good work!" said Dr. Light, his face shining brightly.

"So what are we going to do now?" asked Evelyn.

"Well, we're almost done setting up.  We should probably get going in a few minutes."

Evelyn sighed impatiently and turned to face Rock.  Dr. Light scurried off to help Dr. Wily set up the androids.

"Psst," whispered Evelyn again. "You wanna play a game?"

Rock turned to face her.  His short blue hair was still dry even under the hot lights, which Evelyn thought was kinda neat.  Even her own curly brown hair was damp by now, just because of the intense heat from the stagelights.  Evelyn looked around the room and saw Dr. Wily's pocket protector.

"Okay...I spy with my little eye, something that is green!" whispered Evelyn cheerfully.

Rock blinked a few times before responding.

"I do not understand."

Evelyn facefaulted.  She giggled before continuing.

"Silly!  I say, 'I spy with my little eye,' and then I give you a clue about the object.  Then you have to guess what it is by looking around the room to see what I might have spotted."

"I understand," Rock nodded.

"So...I spy with my little eye, something that is green!"

Rock began glancing around the room in order to scan for any objects which may be green.

"The spotlamp on the right?  The plate across the bottom of the podium?  Your clothing?" to each response that Rock gave, Evelyn shook her head violently and began laughing.

"...Dr. Wily's pen in his breast pocket?" he asked again.  Evelyn patted Rock on his shoulders and nodded.

"See!? Now that isn't so hard!  Okay your turn." Evelyn gestured for Rock to spy something himself.

"I spy with my little eye...something running with a frequency of 5 megahertz," Rock responded blankly, after an intense search of the immediate area.

Evelyn facefaulted again.

***

"Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome to the second and most socially relevant part of our demonstration!" said Dr. Wily to the people in the crowd, who were now comfortably back in their seats after the fifteen minute intermission.  A spotlight highlighted each of the six androids which were spaced evenly across the stage.  Each one was of an identical make-up to Rock, except for one which was a bit wider in the shoulders.

"Although technically androids," started Dr. Light, "we refer to them as Robot Masters.  They are programmed in technical skills which would be useful for maintenance of machinery in the workplace, therefore making them the masters of the machinery."

"Each is equipped with a specific task.  The government has already sanctioned for us to start testing them in the workplace," finished Dr. Wily as he walked over to introduce each Robot Master.

"Each model is based on Rock's design, but are individually programmed for a specific task only, whereas Rock is a basis for this knowledge.  The first is a model which will begin the careful task of demolition on old buildings.  He is designated the BombMan Robot Master!"

The audience clapped as Dr. Wily continued his speech.

"The second will be used for just the opposite: the construction of buildings.  He is designated the GutsMan Robot Master!  He is a bit wider in the shoulders to support larger weights than Rock can handle.  His name is GutsMan, because it takes guts to stand fourty stories tall on a thin steel girder!" said Dr. Wily with a smile.  The scientific crowd laughed at the little joke in the name.

"The third will be used at the scrapyard for reconstruction of new models for an electronics division at AMD.  He is designated the CutMan Robot Master!"

Dr. Wily continued the introductions of the Heavy Voltage Moderator at the power plant as ElecMan, Manager of the Incinerator at IronWorks as FireMan, and the Alert Bay Security as IceMan.

Dr. Light picked up the speech after the applause. "Each one has been equipped to deconstruct another in the link in case the government believes that the conduct of the Robot Master goes outside it's intended use.  Therefore, we have no worries for this future test!  We will be picking up this demonstration in three months time after analysis of the work done by these six Robot Masters.  We will also be analyzing Rock for his own general purpose of human emulation."

A voice came from far off at the Exit doors near the back of the theatre.

"Oh no you aren't." said the gruff, middle-aged man coming down the stairs to the front of the stage.  He was dressed in a deep green military uniform with stripes designating him a General.  His hair was short and grey along the sides and his face was clean shaven with a number of small scars below his left ear.

"Terence, what are you doing here?" asked Dr. Light in a bit of a stupor.  Of all the people to interrupt him, he would have put his brother at the bottom of that list.  Yet here he was, approaching him face to face.  The guards abandoned the exits and came onto the stage to ensure no trouble would start.

"At ease gentlemen," said the General to the guards.  They immediately complied.  He turned his gaze back to Dr. Light.

"Thomas, you can't just expect me to sit here while you conduct these...'tests' of yours!"

"What's wrong?  It was your idea for me to run my experiments, I don't think I would have got a grant without you," stumbled Dr. Light, very unprepared for handling this awkward situation.

"You never said ANYTHING about this kind of crap taking place!"  The General picked his daughter up off the chair.

"Daddy what's the matter?" asked Evelyn, a bit scared.

"Terence, what is the problem?" asked Dr. Light.

"It's bad enough that nonsentient machines took out a lot of jobs, but now you've got these...things doing the hard work which is all that's left for humans!  We're not all intellectual!  You said you wanted to design a better machine, that was it!" yelled the General, getting very angry at his brother.

"These are better machines!" hissed Dr. Light, getting very protective of his work. "What the hell did you expect the next step for machines would be?"

Rock could tell that both brothers saw this argument from different sides.  He chose to stay silent, even though he was technically between the two physically.  Rock could not understand why the General was so annoyed with the development of androids.  Dr. Light had always explained that it was the next logical step in digital evolution.  Rock had just assumed that all humans saw it that way.

"How many people do you think are willing to deal with these things everyday!"

"So what?  Do we want more people to die in the difficult work which these androids will do happily?" asked Dr. Light fiercely.

"Without that difficult work, Dad would have never been able to put you through your degree, you ungrateful bastard!  What about all those other fathers which aren't desk jockeys?"

"Yeah, Dad also died because of that work!  I just want to save people like him from a life like that so that they can actually live!"

"And what about your bots here?  Do they ever get to live, or are you intent on creating a new slave race?  A million bots all willingly doing what we please!  Maybe the US Army would love that...well I'm not one to just sit back and take orders as easily as this thing!"

'Of course, what else would we do?' Rock was confused.  This was not a question he was programmed to respond to.  It went outside any parameters he ever had to deal with.  Still, Dr. Light knew what he was doing.  Rock was programmed to be certain of it.

"That's not it at all!" yelled Dr. Light, but a bit of a quiver developped in his voice.  The audience began mumbling over the topics which the General had brought up.

"And what right did you have including my little girl in your experiment?  It was bad enough that you brought one of those things to my house!  I was willing to put up with that, but I'm not doing it now!"

"Daddy, just stop it!" Evelyn started crying from all the intense anger flying between the two siblings.  The two brothers fumed at eachother.  The crowds weren't sure what to do, so the guards had them quickly file out of the back of the theatre to draw attention away from the argument.

"Your daughter came here of her own will after school!  She volunteered!  And you can't just come in here and stop the future!"

"Sure I can't Thomas, but I'm doing everything in my power to stop you.  No one gave you the right to play some sort of electronic God!  If these things ever fell into the wrong hands, we'd all be-- Forget it.  But I'm not letting this continue..."

Terence walked angrily offstage with his daughter, but before walking out the exit he turned one last time.

"One last thing: I don't even want that 'thing' to come near Evelyn again!  And as far as I'm concerned, neither can you, until you realize just what the hell it is you're doing!  For once, think about the consequences!" and with that, Terence stormed out the exit.

Dr. Light was completely stupified by his brother's actions.  For some reason it was okay to build stronger and faster machines, but making them think was some sort of mistake.

"Rock...come on let's pack up and go home."  The crowd murmured as the last few left the theatre.   It was obvious that the show was over.  Dr. Light looked around, but saw that the stage was already empty of the androids and that Richard had disappeared.

"Well, it looks like Richard already took care of it..."

***

Author's Comment:  Well, this one is not so vocabularly great, but it covered a few important issues.  Next time will be what happened to Roll in the future.  Some have commented that Roll Caskett is from Megaman Legends.  Rest assured that I only took the name from MMLegends but that MMLegends has absolutely no place in my story.  Anyway, I will be skipping next week as well since I'm in Final Exams for school.

As a note:  for all you Terracites out there...yes, that was an exact duplicate of REM ^_^