Diamond, along with the two robot allies, made thier way into the Skull Castle, which used to be Canterlot. Proto Man wanted to apply his Break Man disguise and went down to the dungeons to try and free the ponies trapped inside, but Mega Man was against the idea heavily.

"Blues, the ponies will be released when we beat Wily anyway. I don't see the point in heading down." Mega told him.

"Rock, we need all the help we can get in here. We don't know what Wily has in store. Besides, I'm looking for two certain alicorn princesses. They'd give us an edge." Blues insisted.

"Stop bickering, you two! Who knows what crazy security Wily's got up his sleeve. There could be anything here." Diamond said. "Proto Man, stick with us. The dungeons will just waste time."

"Fine...but next time, you won't talk me out. Let's press on." Proto Man grumbled.

===================================================================================================

Mets, Shield Attackers, Sniper Joes and even an Armour Joe and Big Eyes tried to halt the progress of the heroes, but all fell to the three Busters. That's when Diamond got a bad feeling.

"It's almost as if Wily isn't trying. But there's something else on the way. I can feel it." he told his team. "Busters ready. We don't know what these are."

"Thanks for the info, as they're RIGHT ON TOP OF US!" Mega Man informed. No sooner had he said this than the swarm of Changelings burst through the door.

"These are organic beings. But they appear aggressive, and since we follow the 0th Law of Robotics, we're allowed to take them down." Proto Man informed. "Diamond, you're also an organic being turned part machine, so you can kill these things." he continued, charging his Buster.

"Mega, you got a flame weapon in your arsenal? If so, let me replicate that. It'll make this a lot easier." Diamond said. Mega Man confirmed this by changing to Blazing Torch, which Diamond replicated.

===================================================================================================

As Diamond had stated, fighting Changelings with a flame weapon was a lot easier. Within minutes, the swarm had retreated after many casualties. The three heroes approached Wily's boss door with a rather low health bar, but Proto Man had the answer this time and split an E-Can between them, restoring all of them to full HP. Entering the boss room, they saw Bass at the other end.

"Impressive. You even defeated the Changelings. But I'm still not sure if I can even consider you a threat worth fighting." Bass said from across the room. "Yellow Devil MK 3! Do it for me." he commanded, warping out afterwards. A loud "BUMO" was heard from their side of the room.

"I don't like the look of this. Doesn't this Yellow Devil have a device to make him quicker?" Diamond asked.

"You mean his Speed Gear? Yeah. I got one of those too, as well as a Power Gear. You should too, if you remember correctly." Mega Man said.

"MEMORY BANK RESTORED: 42.7%." the automated assistant said. Memories flashed, you know the drill.

"Oh yeah! The Double Gear system! Let's do this thing! Speed Gear!" he yelled. No sooner had he said this, Yellow Devil started launching his parts towards the other end of the room. Proto Man struggled to dodge them, but Mega and Diamond didn't have much trouble thanks to thier Speed Gears. The Devil formed, with Proto Man around one hit away from death.

"Not cool, you guys. I only have a Power Gear, due to the unstable core." he complained. "But I better make use of this thing. I got Chain Blast on my system from that pink pony with the poofy hair. Let's do this. POWER GEAR!" he finished. He flashed red, with two holographic gears coming together as the energy was released. As Proto Man's initiation finished, he glowed red with power and changed to Chain Blast. While this was going on, Diamond turned on his own Power Gear and fired off a Blazing Torch at Yellow Devil, while Mega just used a Charge Shot. Before Proto could shoot a Chain Blast, however, he had to dodge another volley of Yellow Devil's segments. Diamond helped him do this with his Speed Gear, allowing Proto Man to let loose with a few bombs. This made the Devil furious. He started glowing light blue, with two holographic gears of the same colour combining. Yellow Devil had turned on his Speed Gear.

"That's not good. Any ideas, Mega?" Diamond asked.

"We counter with speed EQUAL to that of Yellow Devil's, obviously!" Mega said, turning on his Speed Gear. Diamond grabbed Proto Man and did the same. However, it wasn't easy to dodge these attacks even with Speed Gears and all three heroes took numerous hits because of it. After Yellow Devil reformed at the heroes' starting end of the room, Diamond had had enough.

"This has gone on TOO long. Time for me to end this. DOUBLE GEAR!!" he yelled. He began to glow white as the light blue and red holographic gears combined into a white. Glowing white, Diamond switched to Chain Blast and demolished Yellow Devil just before his Double Gear ran out of power.

"Bu...mo...mo..." the Yellow Devil stuttered before exploding...again. All that was left in his place was an Element of Harmony.

"Now why would Yellow Devil carry a crystal like that?" Proto Man asked. He went forward to grab it, only to get knocked back.

"Let me try." Diamond offered, and was able to grab the Element with little trouble. "Only organic beings can grab them...interesting. And when I touched it, I felt something. The crystal has a sort of...feeling embedded into it. This one is sealed with Kindness." he stated.

"Interesting. Why don't you try installing it into your system?" Mega suggested.

"Let's give it a shot." he answered. Opening up part of his chestplate, he noticed a hole shaped just like the Element of Kindness, a butterfly. The crystal seemed magnetically drawn to the hole, so all he had to do was let go of it. The Element dropped into place on it's own, with a surge of Kindness coursing through his body. After the power was absorbed, Diamond recieved these notifications:

-Element of Harmony attained!
-This is the Element of Kindness, the first of six. Collecting all of the Elements of Harmony could lead to a huge increase in power.

Not long after came a new weapon.

-Harmony Buster aquired!
-The Harmony Buster will take one - and only one - Element of Harmony and utilize it's hidden power to supercharge your Buster.
-Kindness will fire pellets that do little damage, but may temporarily tempt the enemy to fight for you.

Diamond dismisssd these notifications after reading them through, then signalled to press on.

===================================================================================================

Outside of the Skull Castle, Twilight had gotten one of her ideas. By teaming up with Starlight, she were able to fire a magic beam to cut a hole in the barrier, just big enough for all of them to fit through. The ponies had entered, but had quite a bit of catching up to do.

Author's Note

Another chapter, surprisingly fast. Which boss do you think our heroes will fight next? Will the Mane 7 catch up in time? Can Diamond find a way to exploit the Harmony Buster?

Find out all this and more on the next chapter.