Dr. Wily stared in shock as the robodog landed. "Good boy, Rush," the second Mega Man said, giving him a pat. As the dog barked happily, his master leaned over and examined the figures in the crater. "Not too badly damaged," he said, and seemed to relax. He glanced briefly at Wily, then strode over to Dr. Light, who still seemed unable to form words.

"Sorry, Doctor, but this is for your own good." Most of Mega Man's armor abruptly changed color, becoming bright red, only a few bits of blue remaining. He raised his left hand. Sky blue energy covered it like a flame, before flaring out to envelop Dr. Light's entire body. A few seconds later, the energy faded, and the scientist began to collapse, unconscious. Mega Man caught him before he could hit the ground, and looked over at Wily.

"Do you have an infirmary or anything here?" he asked, changing back to his original colors as he did so. Wily nodded, still rather dumbstruck. "Good. Lead me there. And have some of your robots take my sister and…er…myself to get repaired. Then I'll explain everything."

-W-

Rock, Roll, and the other Robot Masters had been moved to the repair bay, all of them still offline and waiting to get fixed. Mega Man had carefully laid Dr. Light on a bed in the infirmary and pulled a blanket over him. A medibot did some scans; he was in fine health, but exhausted, and would probably be sleeping for quite some time. Upon hearing that, a lot of the tension visibly left Mega Man's face, and as they sat down at a small table together, even Wily was struck by how human he seemed; if he hadn't already known, he never would have thought this was a robot in front of him.

"All right," Mega Man said after a second. "I'm from several years in the future. Well, now that I've come back here, it's technically the future of an alternate timeline." Oddly, Wily wasn't terribly surprised. After all, the Chronos Institute was researching time travel, after all, so who was to say it wouldn't pay off one day?

"Anyway, there's something called Evil Energy. It—"

"Evil Energy?" Wily repeated incredulously. "What sort of name is that?"

Mega Man actually rolled his eyes. "Look, I didn't come up with the name. It comes from space, and it causes people—humans and robots both—to become overwhelmed by rage, greed, jealousy…all the worst emotions. An alien robot called Duo let me copy his ability to purify and destroy it."

"That blue flame." By this point, the mention of an alien robot barely fazed him.

"Yeah. Well, recently, some more Evil Energy came to Earth. Luckily, Dr. Light was able to find and contain it before it could affect anyone. He wanted to run some experiments to see if there was any other way to destroy it or help anyone corrupted by it. One of the experiments he attempted was asking Time Man to try and use his Time Slow ability on it. I guess he wanted to see if he could slow the process of infection. But when Time Man tried, there was some kind of unexpected reaction, and the Evil Energy just vanished."

"Into the past!" Wily exclaimed, snapping his fingers. All the pieces were falling into place now. "Time Man, the Time Man here and now, said that an unknown substance just appeared in Thomas's lab! He didn't know how it got there but he decided to stay up late to study it. And the next day, out of nowhere, he tries to conquer the world."

"The Dr. Light of this time wouldn't have even heard of Evil Energy, much less know what it could do or how to contain it. It would have been able to infect him. Everyone has some darkness in them, even…even him." For just a moment, Mega Man seemed haunted. "Fortunately, the Dr. Light in my time was able to track the Evil Energy's path back into the past. But the trace was a bit imprecise, so when I arrived, it was too late. You'd already freed the others. Luckily, I was able to get here just in time."

Wily shot him an inquisitive glance. "I just realized something. How did you know to come here? Thomas's supercomputers were able to track my broadcast, but you…"

For several seconds, Mega Man looked away. Then he met Wily's gaze again. "Because I've been here before. This is where you were on this day back in my timeline. When I stopped you from taking over the world."

Wily slumped onto the table. "…Oh." I should have realized.

Mega Man sighed. "That's why I became a fighting robot in the first place. You reprogrammed the others, so I asked Dr. Light to rebuild me."

"And your sister too."

"No, Roll's never been remodeled for combat like that. It was…strange, seeing her that way when I got here."

He won WITHOUT his sister's help? Despite what else he'd just learned, Wily was impressed. "So what happened after you stopped me?"

"No one had gotten killed, thankfully. No one really even got seriously injured. You were able to plead temporary insanity and get off the hook. And then you tried again. And again. And again."

"…How many times?"

Mega Man told him. Wily had to grab the table to keep from sinking out of his chair. "That many," he whispered. Did I ever succeed? But the look on the boy robot's face answered that question without him even having to ask it. He ran his hands through his tufts of hair. "Second best. Always second best. I can't ever win."

To his astonishment, Mega Man rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You won today."

He laughed bitterly. "Won? How did I win? If it wasn't for you, I would have died."

"So you needed a little help. Everyone does now and then; I'm no exception. But you freed all the other Robot Masters. You forced Dr. Light to devote all his resources to fighting you. And you beat yourself."

"I did what?"

"The Dr. Wily I've fought, pretty much every time I've beaten him, he gets down and begs for mercy. But when I got here on Rush, while I was getting close enough to take a proper shot, I saw and heard what happened. You refused to beg. You decided to stand up for yourself. For everyone. You could be a hero."

Wily laughed again, but there wasn't as much bitterness in it this time. "I'm no hero."

"The world says differently. I was monitoring broadcasts on the way here. Just like in my timeline, no one's died. And people have been rooting for you."

The scientist sat up slowly. "Rooting for me?" he asked disbelievingly. With everything that had happened, he had completely forgotten that he had made a worldwide transmission proclaiming that he was going to save them all from Dr. Light.

Mega Man nodded, and even smiled a little. "Some of them are even calling you Earth's only hope. I'm sure they're all worrying how you're doing. Let's go to your communications center. It's probably time to end the suspense."

-W-

"Hello everyone, this is Dr. Albert W. Wily again, and I bring you good news! Dr. Light's attempt at world conquest has ended; you are all safe! But I must ask you, do not hold Thomas's recent actions against him. He was not in control of himself! He was performing another of his many experiments to make the world a better place, but something went wrong and his mind was poisoned by strange energy. Fortunately, I have managed to purge it from his system. He is sleeping, but when he awakens, he'll be back to his old benevolent self. My press conference tomorrow will explain further; I'll tell you later when and where exactly it will be. But for now, farewell!"

He ended the broadcast, and looked over at Mega Man, standing at the other end of the communications center. The robot gave him a grin and a thumbs up.

"Sounded great! And it was pretty much the truth, too." They had agreed that mentioning the whole time travel issue would raise too many questions. Wily opened his mouth to reply, but yawned loudly instead. Mega Man's smile faded, replaced by a slightly worried frown. "Doctor, you really should get some sleep."

"Yes, I suppose that would be a good idea." He'd barely rested at all in more than twenty-four hours. Back in their university days, he and Thomas could stay awake twice that long while they got absorbed in a project; but as much as he hated to admit it, much of that youthful energy had sapped away over the years, and during this crisis he'd been relying on adrenaline, anger, fear, and lots of caffeine to keep him going.

He made his way towards his living quarters, half-asleep on his feet, not noticing Mega Man watching him thoughtfully.