"Hey! Hey dad!"

In response, Paul merely buried his face deeper into his father's stomach. "Okay, I guess. I just wanna know why you always have to go off to work."

Alex chuckled softly as he ruffled his son's scruffy blonde hair, which was very much like his own long, light ponytail that hung nearly all the way down his back like molten gold. "Sorry

m'boy, but I have to work a lot."

Paul looked sulky. "Why?"

"Because we need money to buy things."

"Why do we need money to buy things?"

"Because life's a You - Know - What, and then you marry one!" Alex pried his reluctant son off of his midsection. "Tell your ma that I'll be back later tonight."

"I will," Paul muttered, dejected.

Alex gave a satisfied nod, and resumed getting ready for his departure to work for the afternoon.

Unknown to Alex, a sleek, crested robot was perched on a nearby rooftop, gazing at the human with a steady stare, like a vulture watching its heat - parched prey take its last gasp. Bass observed the encounter between the young man and his son, while, in his mind's eye, he recalled the conversation he and ol' Doc Wily had had earlier that day....

"Bass, we have a slight problem with our 'reploid'.

Bass' heart sunk clear down into his armoured boots at the thought that something might be wrong with the plans he had worked so hard to obtain. "What's up, Doc?"

"It's complicated, but I'll give you the gist of it while you think up some more hilarious jokes. A reploid has emotions and thoughts. According to the plans I have, the parts needed to give a reploid those gifts are complicated and extremely hard to find. I certainly don't have them in this lab."

Frustration welled up in Bass. He leaned against the wall beside him and drummed out a little beat on the hard plaster with his fingers. "Well, that IS quite a pickle. If you want me to, I could ransack Light's lab again and try to rip off the parts. After all, if he's building a reploid, and those plans were his, I'm sure he has the accessories need."

Wily shook his head firmly. "No Bass, you said that Rock returned to the lab just as you were leaving. I don't doubt that he'll still be there, and the last thing that I need at this point is to lose you. Besides, I have an alternate plan, and you'll play a crucial part in it."

Bass' interest flared up again. "What's the plan?"

Wily hesitated for a second. "I could probably turn a human into a reploid."

The quizzical expression glued to Bass' face requested more info.

"If I turned a human into a reploid," Wily explained, "It would still have the emotions of a human and the strength of a robot, like any reploid. It wouldn't be totally mechanical like Light's reploid, but it would be my own special breed."

For the first time since he started service to Wily, Bass looked doubtful of his master. "You really think you can change a human into a reploid without killing the fellow?"

Wily looked grim. "I may as well try. Creating my own breed of reploid would certainly be interesting. It would be a reploid that gets its emotions not from mechanics, but from a real human mind. If we DID carry this out, we would transform the human's body into titanium, but leave its mind intact, but it would still be more machine than man. It would be dangerous and painful for the human, but...golly gosh darn it, it would be a challenge! And I'm up for a challenge!"

"'More machine than man...'" Bass echoed. "Cool! Just like Darth Vader!"

"More or less." Wily said to shut him up. "Now Bass, I want you to go out and nab a human. Make it a strong one...the metamorphosis from man to machine will be physically taxing on the human, and we want it to survive. When you do your kidnapping, stick to an area with low traffic. We don't want to attract more attention than needed."

Flustered with the thrill of being permitted to hunt, Bass excitedly prepared to teleport, but Wily stopped him.

"Wait, Bass..." He said. "It's not bloody likely that the human is just going to go with you! Take a dart gun. If the human gives you any sort of a struggle, just shoot him with this, and I guarantee that it'll settle down in a real hurry." Wily held out a small vial of a strange, clear liquid in his gnarled hand.

Bass studied the liquid with interest. "What is this stuff?"

"One of my newer inventions. I call it 'Nullifier..'"

Bass' thoughts came crashing back into the present as he watched the young man below him separate with his son. The bot's eyes glittered hellishly as his powerful mind devised a somewhat diabolical plan. Like a sleek black adder, Bass waited silently above, poised to make his move. He had chosen his victim.

Alex grumbled as he started on the path to his work. It was a fairly nice day, and work wasn't far, but the wind was behind him and it whipped Alex's ponytail over his shoulder as carelessly as a cat's paw torments a mouse. Alex flipped his ponytail back over his shoulder for the twentieth time. "Stay there, damn you." He muttered. As much as Alex took pride in his tremendously long hair, it was beginning to become quite a pain. Some idiots began to comment on his looking like a girl. Perhaps he would cut off the ponytail this weekend...or perhaps not...then again, he had better things to worry about than hair problems...like when the hell he was going to be able to afford a car!?

A sudden, shrill scream from behind tore clean through Alex's mental moping. Alex recognized the owner of the cry right away:

"Paul!"

Alex spun around so quickly that his ponytail lashed him in the shoulder. What he saw made his stomach squirm violently.

There was his son, who had obviously been on his way back to the house, in the fierce clutches of a robot that was clad in ebony armour with gold trimmings. Paul was crying, trying to lunge towards his father, but the robot held him fast by one arm. What really frightened Alex, though, was the fact that the black demon had a strange looking gun pressed against the back of Paul's shaking head. Alex's throat went totally dry. Numbly, he followed his protective instinct and started back to his captive boy. Of course, he was not armed, but that didn't matter to him; he did not trust robots. They were becoming far too human, and there was no telling what THIS particular fellow wanted.

A sharklike grin rapidly spread across the robot's face as he watched Alex lurch dumbly towards him. "Hold it, human!" He snarled. "Don't come any further, or you'll see the blood of your pathetic offspring paint the sidewalk."

Alex's bloodshot eyes leapt back up to the gun pressed against his sobbing son's head. He slowed down to a complete stop.

"Attaboy!" The robot cheered as if he were praising a dog. "Don't make any noise either. We want to be as quiet as possible."

"What the hell do you want? Let him go NOW!"

Despite the forbidding tone in Alex's voice, the black robot respond airily. "I don't want to hurt the boy, and I won't on one condition. I want you to come with me for a bit."

Alex's stomach wall became coated with ice and his feet were cemented in place. He was fairly certain that following this devil would mean death in one form or another. "May I ask what for?"

The robot's face lost its expressions of assurance and cunning. It just became one gigantic frown. "Don't give me any hassles! Remember who I've got!" At these words, the robot jostled Paul, who was silent but trembling. The cold, ominous black steel of the gun that was pressed hard against his head was not lowered for a second. Alex would have to go with the robot for the sake of his boy. What options did he have? None. Nada. Zippidy - do - dah. Zero.

"I'll go," Alex grunted. "just leave him alone."

The robot nodded slightly. "Smart move." He threw the shocked bait away from him. Paul stumbled for a few steps then fell on a neighbour's lawn. Alex saw his chance. He rushed the robot, intending to tackle it. Alex was pretty sure that he could overpower this freak with the element of surprise. After all, this robot was smaller than him, but few people were above Alex's bestial height of 6"5. But even while Alex charged at the robot, panic overwhelmed him; he could tell by the robot's amused expression that it had been totally prepared for this unruly behaviour. Wordlessly, the grinning bot raised the gun and fired it in one fluid motion. A small, streamlined dart leapt from the short muzzle of the gun. Neatly, it sailed at Alex and stuck fast in the human's shoulder, stopping him in mid - charge. Crying out, Alex wheeled around while he pulled the poisonous object out of his shoulder, but it was too late. He began to feel a warm tingling at the base of his spine. The strange sensation slowly crawled up his back and spread to his limbs. in place of his fear and rage, Alex felt a sort of sleepy calmness creep over him. He found that his shaking legs could no longer support him as he wilted to the ground like a dead flower. All the frightening images of his son being held hostage by the black demon fled his mind as he lost consciousness.

Bass inwardly grinned as he watched the big human before him sink to the ground, unconscious. So THAT's what Nullifier did! Pretty handy stuff. Bass slung the human's limp body over his shoulder. The human was so tall and Bass was so short that the humans' hands dangled and actually touched the ground. Regardless of this comical sight, Bass gave a fierce glance up and down the street. To his relief, the street remained deserted. The only spectator present was the human's son, who silently watched in disbelief as his father - the strongest and bravest man in the world - was slung over some strange robot's shoulders like a sack of grain. Bass tried to harden his heart against the pitiful sight. Maybe he shouldn't have chosen a family man.

"Sorry kid." He mumbled awkwardly, trying to shake the unfamiliar feeling of guilt that gripped him. A black beam shot down from the sky. It swept up Bass, rapidly taking him back to the lab.

"Hey, Castor!!"

"Yeah?"

"Watch what happens when I stick my tongue in this electrical socket!"

"No Pollux, I really don't think you should --"

There was a sharp, crackling sound like bacon frying. With a strangled yelp, Pollux was thrown a good four feet back from the angry socket. As he lay there, with his name tag now charred and smoking, the faint, acrid smell of ozone began to fill the lab. The robots who had been present to watch Pollux's flight now cheered as if the Gemini Man had done something clever.

"All right Pollux, you da man!" Someone laughed.

Bass growled faintly as he watched these childish ongoings. Anyone who ever said that robots were supposed to have intelligence a hundredfold of humans would have gotten a real shock if they had been present at that moment.

Bass felt something paw at his leg. He looked down to see Gospel. The robodog gazed up at his god while wagging his stubby tail. He had not gone with Bass to nab the human, and Gospel did not like to be separated from his master for even a second.

Bass smiled as he kneeled to pet the dog. "Hey Gospel. You missed me, huh? Let me show you something."

Bass led his companion to the table situated in the middle of the lab. The creature lying there was quite a sight: It appeared to be a human, but it was under such a tangled mass of multicoloured wires that it was almost impossible to tell for sure. The human was indeed Alex undergoing the metamorphosis from a human to a reploid. The Doc and many of the robots had been working for days and nights on this project. So far, they were succeeding. All the wires attached to Alex were needed to keep his biological systems running while vital organs were altered or replaced. It was a very tricky process, and they had come close to losing the victim more than once. But for now, the human's breathing under the oxygen mask was regular. Bass' worst fear was that the human would suddenly awaken and begin to panic; but Alex had remained in a deep swamp of hibernation since Bass had shot him with the Nullifier.

The only other robot present at the table was Snake Man. Monty the python still swarmed over his shoulders. The reptilian bot was carefully observing the monitors hooked up to Alex, watching for any sudden and drastic change in the human's vital signs. Bass and Gospel approached him.

"Hey, Snakester. How's my baby brother doing?" Bass motioned towards Alex.

"So far he's fine. You said that his name was Alex?"

"Yep."

"How do you know that?"

Bass grinned a little sheepishly. "We found his wallet amoung his things. It contained ID that told us everything we need to know about him. Age, date of birth, blood type, and so forth."

"So we know his name." Snake muttered. "But does he have a given name? I mean, what's he gonna be called when he turns into a robot...uh, I mean a reploid?" Snake corrected himself.

Bass grinned wryly. "The Doc and I already picked out a name. Did he ever tell you the name of his alligator? The one that ate his hamster, X?"

"Nope."

"Well, look at the monitor up there." Bass motioned to a radiant screen hanging close to Snake. "That'll tell ya the answer to your question."

Snake Man shuffled around to read the information behind him.