A Fate Woven In Steel
is a Worm and Mega Man crossover by NexusTheDark.
Once there were two men, both alike in skills but with differing ideals. One desired a world of peace and harmony, the other, conquest and strife.
Their sum total of knowledge has now found its way into the mind of Taylor Hebert, a Parahuman who would in another instance of reality, come to be known as Skitter.
With the advanced robotics and mechanical knowledge of the finest minds in their field; join Taylor as she now fights for everlasting peace...by building robots to fight things
Tropes:
- A God Am I: Elec Man believes himself a divine avatar, albeit a benevolent one. To be fair, his Shock and Awe powers are fairly impressive.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Gutsman is usually shown as Dumb Muscle, a brute who may or may not be well-meaning but not that smart. This story's version of him is less "Unintelligent," and makes him more of an uncomplicated Union Man who believes in hard work and getting the job done. Still not going to win any Nobel Prizes, but an upgrade nonetheless.
- Appropriated Appelation: Blues's name came from Taylor musing at a picture of Annette, and finding that he liked it.
- Arm Cannon: This is a Mega Man crossover, this is a given.
- When Crash Man debuts, he actually has a problem with this- he has bomb launchers, but no hands. Taylor apologizes for this, since he had to be activated early, and does give him hands later.
- Bad Liar: Proto Man can bluff from a position of strength, but he's not much of a liar when caught on the spot.
- Barrier Warrior: Skidmark's power gives Proto Man a force field that repels objects of up to four metric tons, and can be propelled at enemies to knock them away from a greater distance.
- The Big Guy: Guts Man, natch. Capable of throwing a sizable chunk of debris two or three miles away, and is nearly 9 feet tall.
- Brown Note: After Taylor/Wily's debut, something happens that disrupts the powers of thinkers worldwide, up to and including Contessa and maybe even the Simurgh. Whether or not Taylor is indirectly behind it somehow or if Ra Moon is the cause is unknown.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer:
- Elec Man falls under the category of A God Am I, as seen in the above trope. The story even says that when it comes to arrogance among Capes, he's in a class of his own, "His ego would permit no less," but he's incredibly effective when it comes to controlling electricity. He's capable of sensing electricity in the ground, manipulating lightning to precise amounts to knock people unconscious, and even calling people's phones with just EM waves.
- Guts Man isn't the smartest, and he might get bored easily, and it admittedly didn't make him look the most professional when he started singing and dancing a drinking song in the PRT waiting room, but he's strong, confident, and knowledgeable about building and construction.
- Cannot Keep a Secret: Proto bursts out his Power Copying ability to Armsmaster without thinking.
- Elec Man keeps doing this out of arrogance, such as revealing that Proto and he are brothers, and that there's nine others beside them... when Taylor was trying to not broadcast that information.
- Contrived Coincidence: The Brown Note effect on Thinkers worldwide happens the same day Wily makes their debut. Taylor and Proto worry that someone's going to blame them for it and come after them.
- Didn't Think This Through: Tattletale figures out that Taylor is Wily on the bus, and immediately starts trying to sell her on joining the Undersiders or helping them take down Coil. Thing is, Tattletale just violated the Unwritten Rules, and freaks out Taylor so badly that she immediately calls for help. When the Undersiders find out what happened, everyone is pissed at her, and even Bitch decides to deliver a beat down to Tattletale for all the things they went through.
- Eating Machine: Proto can eat, with the useful components acting as fuel.
- Everyone Has Standards: After having to run through Wily's gauntlet to get to Tattletale, Grue starts agreeing with Regent that their attack on Wily's base is absolutely awful.
- The Undersiders turn briefly on Lisa when they find out that their trials in the fortress was all Lisa's fault, as she broke the Unwritten Rules.
- Even Armsmaster, who isn't the best at social interaction, is exasperated with Elec Man... being himself.
- Foil: Armsmaster notes that Proto's concern for civilian safety, among other things, essentially makes him an anti-Shadow Stalker.
- For Want Of A Nail: Thanks to Wily and Guts Man, Dinah Alcott doesn't Trigger.
- Head Desk: Taylor does this when Danny does some Stating the Simple Solution.
- Humans Are Flawed: The main reason that Taylor created Protoman and the Robot Masters is that she has started to believe this, especially concerning that a human mind isn't made for monotony, even if it is heroics (meaning that it's unrealistic to expect a human to continuously be heroic forever without burning out, a problem her AI's will not have).
- Idiot Ball: After coincidentally running into Taylor/Wily on the bus in their civilian identities, Lisa gets ahead of herself and reveals that she knows Taylor is Wily to try and get a leg up in the negotiations to eliminate Coil. This results in Proto Man teleporting in and chloroforming her, and the Undersiders getting very annoyed when they go to rescue her and run into the obstacles set up to deter them, as well as when they fight Crash Man. Lisa doesn't even argue that she didn't deserve the blows Rachel inflicted on her after they find her and learn this.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Armsmaster tries to forbid Wily from rescuing Dinah Alcott, and she snaps at him for not acting like a hero. However, he did have a point that they knew nothing about her creations, that tossing untested technology into an already dangerous situation is usually a recipe for disaster, and that the situation was very precarious with a building about to collapse. While he could have phrased it better, his concern for doing the job right was well-placed.
- Lantern Jaw of Justice: Guts Man has one. He claims it's a sign of manliness and that if you're a hero long enough, you'll get one. Clockblocker jokingly asks if he can avoid this by becoming a villain.
- Limb-Sensation Fascination: Crash Man is very happy when his hands are properly finished, and starts feeling everything.
- Logical Weakness: Crash Man's armor is strong, but when shifting into heavy weapons mode, he's much weaker... since the armor has to retract for the weapons to be fired. Also he doesn't have hands at least part of the time, which is a pretty serious weakness if you want to do anything that involves hands.
- The Masquerade: Taylor/Wily is doing her best to keep the PRT from realizing that Proto and her other Robot Masters are, in fact, robots.
- Mega Manning: Proto Man finds that the system allowing him to change his hand into a weapon and back allows him to copy parahuman powers by touch and use them, though they're changed somewhat (for example, Mush's power results in the "Trash Roller", which attracts debris into a rolling ball projectile that explodes on impact).
- Musical Theme Naming: Blues, Rock and Roll of course.
- Mythology Gag: "Sure it's not like he fought Lung on his first night or anything..."
- Obviously Evil: Taylor wants to be seen as a hero. Unfortunately, her power is based on Doctor Wily's robot building skills, so this means that she puts skulls on everything. Many people lampshade this to her.
- It also doesn't help that her first appearance was in the middle of a Cape Fight, leading an army of robots, and working alongside Elec Man.
- Pokémon Speak: Mettaurs speak this way. Taylor and her creations can understand them.
- Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Proto Man delivers one to Tattletale when she freaks out Taylor."Does this smell like Chloroform to you?"
- Professor Guinea Pig: The fact that Taylor didn’t go this route is enough for Armsmaster to give her a low Thinker rating. Piggot tries to call him out on it, but he insists, pointing out two Tinkers who didn't.
- Required Secondary Powers: Crash Man performs well against the Undersiders, despite the darkness and the spinning that he's put through, because he's a robot. His internal gyroscopes and tracking software keep track of where he is at all times and he can't get motion sickness.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Besides personality, Proto, Rock and Roll are the most human-looking of Taylor/Wily's bots (especially when Proto's out of his armor), with the other Robot Masters varying in how human they look and averted with the Mets. This helps keep the PRT from realizing that Proto and the Masters are robots instead of capes, though Armsmaster has noticed that his lie detector is less effective on them.
- Averted with Guts Man, who everyone notes looks like a robot. Wily's explanation is that he's mostly mechanical.
- Robo Family: Taylor and her creations, especially Blues, Rock and Roll (once the latter two are complete, at least), are this.
- Shock and Awe: Elec Man, of course, from firing flashy (but ultimately non-lethal) blasts to fusing loose cables in a collapsed building to calling Piggot's cell phone. Lisa notes via her powers that his ego is backed up by his powers.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Elec Man. Oh Lord, Elec Man. Refers to people who are not him or Wily as "Mortals," asks for praise and worship, argues with people about how they're thinking he's weaker than he is, and believes himself to either be divinity or an avatar of divinity.
- Spanner in the Works: Proto, and later Wily's other forces, is this to Coil, Contessa, and maybe even the Simurgh herself.
- Stating the Simple Solution: When talking with Taylor and Proto, Danny suggests that Proto have a civilian identity so that he can catch villains by surprise when they learn to anticipate them. Taylor does a Head Desk and asks why she didn't think of that.
- Sunglasses at Night: Actually quite useful for protecting your vision against particularly bright explosions, like when Proto blows up one of Squealer's vehicles he's glad he's wearing some.
- Teleportation Sickness: Organics do not teleport well, and even Proto is a little off guard at first. The first time Taylor teleported a living thing, it was a rat, who was fine for a few seconds... before it went insane and started clawing its own face off. Wily justifies Guts Man being able to teleport by saying that he's "mostly machine." In reality, it's mostly not a problem for Wily's forces as they are entirely mechanical.
- Tempting Fate: A few characters do this, like Proto, only for fate to listen.
- Three Laws-Compliant: Referenced, but Taylor was much more thorough when programming her creations, intending them to be used as training wheels of sorts.
- Throw It In!: In-Universe, the Robot Masters were created because Taylor had a lot of ideas for Proto Man, and decided to put them into separate robots rather than try and fit all of them into Proto.
- Underestimating Badassery: Lampshaded by Colin, who thinks the ratings of the new heroes under Wily will only go up despite trying to avoid this.
