[Coda]

SUBJECT: Re: Encounter Log - Proto Man
AUTHOR: Rock [DLN-001]
DATE: September 21, 20XX
FORMAT: Holovid + Telemetry + Annotations

"Are you okay, Dr. Light?" Mega Man turns to his creator in concern.

"I'm... I'm fine." Dr. Light shakes his head as he picks himself up off the ground. "Barely."

Mega Man removes his helmet and sets it aside. "What happened? And why did that Robot Master look like Proto Man?"

"Second question first. That... WAS Proto Man. But he's... changed. I don't know what Dr. Wily did to him. He claims that Dr. Wily didn't make any changes to his programming, he doesn't act like the Blues I remember. I... suppose it's possible that Dr. Wily could have built a duplicate, or reprogrammed him to lie. But that doesn't seem likely, given Albert's personality, and..." Dr. Light takes a moment to consult a computer terminal. "... the energy signature matches. He isn't the type to put that much effort into replicating something someone else created when he could be building something new of his own."

"Okay, so it was probably Proto Man. But you still haven't told me what happened."

Dr. Light shakes his head again with a deep, bitter sigh. "It seems that Dr. Wily discovered Proto Man's body, replaced his power core, activated him, and proceeded to tell him... either lies, or a very distorted version of the truth. Proto Man had obviously been offline for three years, because he was completely unaware of Dr. Wily's attacks."

Rock interrupts before Dr. Light can continue. "But what happened here? Why did he attack you?"

"I'm getting there," Dr. Light sighs. "It seems like Proto Man blames me for everything. He blames me for not getting the military contract. He says I never listened to his opinions--"

"--can't blame him--"

Dr. Light scowls a little, but he's too heartbroken to stay angry. "He says I never listened to his opinions. He blames me for not being able to locate him, even though his transponder was malfunctioning. And since he never knew about Albert's betrayal, he only remembers that Dr. Wily was helpful."

"That still doesn't explain why he would shoot at you."

"That's the part that doesn't make sense to me, either. I've never seen him so angry. He was threatening me from the moment he arrived. I tried to talk to him, but when it seemed like he was really about to attack me, I tried to activate his remote override. But it seems that either he himself or Dr. Wily came up with a countermeasure for that. When I started to whistle the code, there was a white noise burst that covered up the end of it, so it only angered him more that I would try. And you were here for the rest of it."

Rock pulls a chair over for Dr. Light to sit in, and the shaken scientist wearily settles into it. "Oh. Thank you."

The super fighting robot folds his arms. "So then... now what? My long lost brother is back from the grave, Dr. Wily is up to SOMETHING and we don't know what or why. And I certainly don't know what to do at this point. Seems like all I'm good for is blowing up evil robots and I can't even do that now."

"I don't know..." Dr. Light slumps his shoulders and hangs his head. "I'm sorry, Rock, but I really don't. But I'm going to keep working. I'll try to find answers." He pauses. "No. I'm sure I'll find the answers."

Mega Man doesn't seem convinced. "Okay. Then I guess I'm just going to go do what I was going to do anyway."

"What's that?"

"I have no idea."


SUBJECT: Transcript - Dr. Wily
AUTHOR: Proto Man
DATE: September 12, 20XX
FORMAT: Plain Text

Wily> Proto Man! It worked!

> Dr. Wily? Where's Dr. Light?

Wily> I was thrown out of Light Labs two years ago!

> Why was I deactivated for almost four years? Why were you thrown out of Light Labs?

Wily> Ah, Proto Man, Proto Man, one question at a time! I'll answer the second one first. The staff at Light Labs, and especially Dr. Light himself, were excessively critical of me. My ideas were treated with prejudice! I'm sure I could have won us that military contract, but the board of directors wouldn't back me! Even when I tried to prove that my strategy would have worked, I was rejected! In the end they made it clear that I was no longer welcome.

> That doesn't seem very characteristic of Dr. Light.

Wily> Thomas can be a very controlling individual. But he did his best to hide his nature from you by trying to act like a father. But in the end, I'm the one that found you and repaired you.

> Why did it take so long?

Wily> Dr. Light stopped searching for you. He gave up and moved on to building other robots. But I gave instructions to my own creations to watch for signs of you, and now here you are! And then I had to take the extra effort to make a power source compatible with your systems.

> It's not completely compatible. My system doesn't recognize it.

Wily> I remembered the things you had said before. We built you to be an individual, and you are! And you had told me that you were worried about losing your identity if other people altered your software. So I honored that opinion and never even logged into your operating system. No changes to your code or data!

> But I don't know how much charge I have.

Wily> You should be fine! It's a self-replenishing power source of my own design, and you're the perfect candidate to use it. It generates energy from focused application of sentient thought, and you, Proto Man, were built to be the most intelligent robot humanity had ever seen.

> My diagnostics do show that my systems are running more stable than they did with my original power core.

Wily> Ah, excellent, that is good news! We actually did solve the problems with the micro-fusion reactor design, but I wanted to give you the best I could produce. It will provide feedback to you in its own way. And you can still plug in to run on tethered power if you ever feel uncertain about it. I'll leave all of that in your own hands to do with as you please.

> I suppose the best thing for me to say right now is "thank you."

Wily> You're very welcome, Proto Man. I'm proud to be able to finish what I started all those years ago.