#pixel man

pixel works in cybersecurity, cracking open suspicious programs and mysterious files to figure out exactly what they do and why. basically what he does is open the pure code he's working on and read it line by line to figure out what it does from scratch, letting him find security flaws or hidden malware in only hours where it'd take even the most experienced human hackers months to make any progress. he's fluent in every documented language of code and can teach himself new ones, and was specifically designed to be good at learning and applying new information

he has to be really thorough and meticulous with his job, so that extends to his personality and behaviour. he double-checks everything, has some neat freak tendencies, and generally is a bit of an anxious wreck overall. he's morbidly socially awkward and has trouble with social cues, but once he's had some time to work up his confidence he can easily hold a conversation for hours just gushing nonstop about something that interests him. he's easily flustered and quickly turns into a stuttery mess when he receives praise or affection, he's such a huge dork i love him so much

when he's not working, pixel is usually finding other types of code to pull apart - he's fascinated by old video games and especially by emulation! in his spare time he likes putting together his own emulators, often on unconventional hardware like getting a gameboy to run on a smart fridge or something ridiculous like that. it's a fun exercise in creative problem solving for him, and the stakes are so low in comparison to his usual work that it's actually pretty relaxing :) [he also rips all his own roms! no piracy for this guy, he's hard-coded to follow the law even when he knows it's objectively stupid. when he gets his 'don't do crimes' code ripped out with a pair of tongs i think the first thing he'd do is download literally every rom of every single game released from 1977 to 20XX on company wifi at a horrifying speed lmao]

if he needs to, he can plug himself into almost any computer via the port in his chest to directly access files without any interface in between. this greatly increases his work speed, since he doesn't have to waste precious time translating visual information into something he can process, but it makes his own systems pretty vulnerable to malware - especially if it specifically targets robot masters, as he learns the hard way when wily takes control of him. because of this increased risk, he generally only directly accesses files if they somehow resist being displayed visually, they're stored on a computer without any wireless capability, or if the matter is REALLY time-sensitive. he typically opts to use his holographic screens instead, which can connect wirelessly to most devices and have a unique operating system built specifically to streamline pixel's job for him. like 99% of the time they're more than enough

he's weak to sugar rush because trust me, as someone who has dropped cake in a keyboard before, it's not good for computers. by that logic sugar rush would wreck the entire game, but pixel in particular has a gaping hole in his chest specifically for getting directly into his systems, and he really needs to get like a surge protector or something before someone just hucks a massive glob of icing in there. he's not well-prepared for combat at all, honestly, but with his screens modified into hard light shields he can at least defend himself and give any stray super fighting robots a nasty electric shock. sadly i don't have much of an idea for what his stage would be like yet..... given his interest in old video games and my absolute obsession with the aesthetic i could see him maybe having a stage in an arcade?

pixel is one of the first robot master ideas i ever had, but it took me ages to figure out how i wanted him to look. i think early on he looked more like bounce man in my head? whatever he started as in my brain, though, i never drew it, and somehow i ended up with this lanky minecraft man instead. a lot of his design was just made up on a whim and immediately stuck, and there's a bunch of things i tried to do but just couldn't get to work [like the aforementioned bounce-like design, and i originally wanted green and purple in his colour scheme before accepting that it wasn't going to work], but despite the pain drawing him has caused me i think he's ended up as one of my favourite ocs design-wise..... society is objectively better off since i drew big eyebrows on him in the initial microsoft paint image and liked them so much i kept them there

also, when he's working on a particularly tricky project that has him pulling all-nighters [whether strictly work-related or not], my guy goes through e tanks the way stressed students go through coffee. it's probably a problem lmao have you tried sleeping sir

it's getting pretty late so i'm gonna call the pixel infodump done for now - thank you so much for asking about this dork! like last time, here's the art without the fancy lighting for a more straightforward look at his colour scheme :D

rhythm man gives beat drop - a stomp attack that sends out a shockwave to hurt any enemies touching the ground. probably accompanied by some kind of bass boosting noise.

pixel man gives pixel firewall - a shield weapon with three orbiting pieces. it can absorb up to three attacks, or the remaining pieces of the shield can be fired by shooting. as projectiles, they home in on the nearest enemy rather than being fired directionally.

cool woman gives sleet foot - an attack that replaces the slide like charge kick in mm5. when rock kicks an enemy that doesn't die in one hit to the damage, it gets encased in a block of ice and slides away until it either hits a wall and shatters or slides harmlessly offscreen or into a pit.

care woman gives psychic cry - a blast of white noise, too high-pitched for humans or most robots to hear. it doesn't do any more damage than the mega buster outside of weaknesses, but it stuns enemies it hits for about a second.

tide man gives harpoon shot - imagine the hookshot from zelda but in a 2d platformer and you've got the basic idea. a harpoon gun that can be fired left, right, up, or diagonally up. if it hits an enemy or the side of the screen it bounces back to rock, if it hits a wall he'll be pulled to wherever the harpoon landed.

sweet woman gives sugar rush - a glob of icing shot in an arc similar to flame burst from mm6, but without the explosion. honestly it's kind of a joke weapon, but given how much use i got out of flame burst thanks to its trajectory it's probably useful for something. it can be rapid fired by holding down the shoot button.

hex woman gives eerie pulsar - a charged area-of-effect attack with three levels of charge increasing in range, damage, and energy cost. uncharged it's a quick zap within social distancing range, partially charged it goes further, and fully charged it's a screen nuke. rock can't move when he's charging and it takes a couple seconds to fully charge, so it isn't a get out of jail free card like other screen nukes, but it's still pretty helpful i would hope. also this one was the hardest to draw i know this doesn't look clear at all sorry hjwnkjgdbn

glass man gives molten shard - a shard of white-hot glass that explodes when it hits a wall. if it hits an enemy that it destroys in one hit, it keeps going rather than disappearing on impact like most bullets.