AN: Surprise! Bet you guys thought I'd fallen off the face of the Earth, huh? This can be considered a sequel to "Love Aile" if you so desire, though it's not necessary to have read that.
Vent made sure that Rush's food and waterbowls were full before he headed out to do the next set of deliveries, hopping on his bike and driving off.
At sixteen years old, most teenagers would still be in school, studying to prepare them for their dream jobs. Not so with Vent Wiley; he'd been working at his adoptive father's business since he was a child. At first he and his twin sister, Aile, had only done simple things, such as paperwork, or basic housekeeping that any child would be able to do. As he grew older, he had been given more responsibilities, culminating in him getting his bike license at the age of thirteen, and then being allowed to go out on the deliveries.
It wasn't an easy life, and he was aware that he hadn't had as much recreation time as most kids their age would have. Most kids had had a mom and a dad, loving them and encouraging them to study while they goofed off and worried about the most inane things, such as dating, their parents grounding them for bad grades, when the next school event was, and those sort of things.
But Vent and Aile's innocence had been shattered in the Maverick attack at the amusement park in Area G that had claimed their mother's life, and they knew the harsh realities of the world - it wasn't a safe and rosy place. Giro had also been of a sound mind, and had proclaimed that learning the business of Giro Express would enable them to at least be able to make a living even if whatever they chose to study in school didn't work out.
Vent was thankful that Giro had, indeed, taught him the ins and outs of the business. When the blond man and Aile had disappeared during what was supposed to be a routine delivery, he'd managed to keep everything going - talking to business partners, taking care of Rush, getting the deliveries out, and generally doing everything just as well as Giro had. But then again, he'd always been the more business-inclined than Aile had been.
He stopped at a red light after delivering several of the packages, sighing for a brief moment. Aile was alive, he knew that, and she'd gotten herself wrapped up in something extremely dangerous - the same dangerous thing that had claimed Giro's life.
First his mom... now Giro, dead at the hands of the same person. Even if Serpent hadn't dealt the blows himself, he had been the one to kill them.
He just prayed that Aile was safe. He'd never manage if he lost her too.
Vent would never understand why women loved clothes so much. Aile had generally been the exception to the rule, but occasionally she would come back home wearing a completely different style of clothing and with her hair dyed another color, and he never understood it. What was wrong with their blue uniforms and brown hair? He'd had the same colors for ages and didn't mind at all.
It was probably a female thing.
"My new pleated skirt!" the little blond girl squealed when she'd received the package, bouncing up and down as she clutched at her pink purse. "It's gonna be super pretty!"
"Uh... I guess so," Vent frowned, trying not to look bored as the little girl gushed over the skirt as he checked to make sure that the delivery was checked off before turning around to head back to his bike - and paused.
That had not been on his bike before.
The teenager tilted his head as he looked at the oddly-shaped package, pulling out a handheld scanner to check if it was a bomb of sorts. It seemed innocent enough, and even the scan came out negative. Something for him? Something that someone wanted him to deliver?
The memory came back of another oddly shaped package, that Giro and Aile had gone to deliver, and he couldn't help but shiver, intending to climb back onto his bike and go home now that all the deliveries were done, and perhaps play with Rush a bit.
Everything was going to be fine.
Of course, that would be when all hell finally broke loose.
The sound of explosions and screaming tore Vent from his thoughts, causing him to snap his head around in the direction that it had come from. He swore quietly, hopping onto his bike and heading in that direction.
"You're going that way?"
He blinked, shaking his head and wondering if the explosion had knocked his hearing silly, but he ignored it, eyes steeling when he saw mechaniloids firing at the buildings. Mavericks. Leftovers from Slither Inc that had gone rogue after Aile had destroyed it? Wild mechaniloids from the Outlands? He didn't know, but right now, he didn't care to find out.
Vent slowed the bike down, intending to find something that he could use as a weapon against them - a pole, a rock, some rubble that he could crush them under, /something/ until the Guardians got there to assist. He found a metal pole quickly enough, and picked it up. He had no training at all in a melee fighting style - who would, in this day and age, except the Guardians - but that didn't mean that he was going to run away and leave the other civilians here.
"Gonna try to be a hero, then?"
Vent darted forward, bashing the first Maverick on the head as it focused on the woman below it. "Run!" he yelled to her, and only looked after her long enough to make sure that she had gotten out of the line of fire before going for a second Maverick. Having not actually expected someone that could fight back, the Mavericks fell quickly enough - long enough for the remaining civilians to get away - and the teenager breathed a sigh of relief. It didn't look like anyone had been hurt.
Whatever Aile had done, it hadn't been enough if Mavericks were still out there.
That relief was quickly dashed when the ground rumbled underneath him, and a giant robot, shaped much like a crab, burst out of the ground, its pincers clicking menacingly. It reached for him, and Vent did the first thing that he could think of - hold the pole he'd been using up against its pincer.
It startled it, but all it did was give him time to back away a few steps, not too far from where his bike had fallen from the earthquake.
Vent swore, his weapon useless, as he looked around for something else that he could use.
"It's useless. You should run, boy."
And again with the voice. "No way!" Vent shouted, unsure as to where the speaker was. "If I leave it, it'll destroy the entire city!" He grabbed a rock on the ground, backing up a few steps and throwing it at the crab mechaniloid. The pincers batted it aside immediately and it slammed its other pincer on the ground, creating a shockwave that knocked Vent down. "No...!"
"Guess it can't be helped." And for the first time, Vent realized that the voice was coming from the package on the ground - or rather, what had been inside the package. The brown wrapping was now torn open - whether from the shockwave or from falling off his bike, he didn't know, and he could now see the speaker.
It was, for lack of a better term, a hunk of metal, carved into an oval-ish shape with sharp edges in its features. Its primary colors were blue and pale green,, and white around the facial area, with a red crystal embedded in the center. Its eyes also glowed red, and for a moment Vent was unnerved; but the red was a different shade than the ones of the Mavericks.
What mattered more was that it was facing him and floating, a gentle green glow pulsing around it. A mechaniloid? "What are you?"
"I'll show you how a real hero does things!"
He reached out to grab it, but he didn't get the chance. The last thing he heard before everything went white was the metal-face speaking one more time.
"Biolink established! M.E.G.A. System, online!"
Even though it happened in milliseconds, for Vent, it felt like eternity. He could feel his blood flowing, as if the data from the Biometal was merging with it. Pale green armor, not armor unlike the Mavericks, was materializing around him, his undersuit changing colors to a deep shade of blue instead of the black that he typically wore. Gold accents lined the boots that he now wore, and a small pair of pale green and gold fins jutted out from behind him.
Something settled onto his head, and somehow, without looking, he knew. Knew that there was a blue helmet on his head, with several spiky pale green and gold accent, and a red crystal in his forehead. And there was another presence inside of him, one that could only be identified as the rock from earlier that he had been talking to earlier. What in the world had happened?!
"Ask questions later. Don't you have a Maverick scum to retire?"
The words that it used were odd, but Vent wasted no time in heeding the other's advice. Before he could consciously decide what to do, the crab was on him, raising a pincer, and in panic, he pushed his arm up, a bright ball of plasma escaping from the end of the hole in his arm to hit the pincer - which shattered immediately under the force.
The crab reared back, and Vent used the opportunity to pull himself out from underneath it and stand up, panting in shock. A Buster... he had a Buster, and armor. He could actually /fight/ it, and possibly defeat it, and keep Innerpeace safe.
"I can do more than that!" He heard it scoff again. "Switch my elements. I can shoot Fire, Ice, and Lightning!"
After a bit of fumbling, he found out how to do just that, and it allowed him to use some more strategy - freezing the crab's legs prevented it from moving, and applying fire to them caused them to shatter from the heat shock. And shooting balls of lightning stunned it long enough for Vent to fire a charged shot through its processor. The crab mechaniloid slumped down, its battered body deactive and destroyed; without its processor, it would do nothing.
Vent waited, tense, in case something else popped up, but nothing happened, and he finally marveled at the power of this thing. What a versatile object! And it had just been handed to him...?
"Hehehe... now that is what a hero's like!"
"Who are you?" Vent asked again.
"Me? Biometal Model C. We make a good team, so you had better not give me away!"
"Um... right..." Vent trailed off. "Why were you in that package, anyways?"
"How am I supposed to know? I woke up when I sensed a compatible host, and you had me and were in front of that Maverick." Vent felt odd and for a split second, his vision went white again. When his vision came back to himself, he was dressed in his normal clothes again, no worse for the wear, and Model C was floating in front of him.
"Er..." Vent trailed off, looking at the Biometal, and then at the remains of the Maverick. "Thanks for the help. Wouldn't have been able to do that without you."
"Of course you wouldn't have. I was a hero, after all."
Well, the Biometal certainly had an ego. Before Vent could say anything more, he heard a cry from behind him, and whirled around to see several green-uniformed people approaching. They were not who had caught his attention, however.
"Aile?"
She'd apparently dyed her hair again, to a rich shade of red, and the yellow clothes he had to admit actually didn't look bad on her. But he would know his twin sister anywhere, and the look on her face suggested that he would have a lot of explaining to do.
But for once, he was looking forward to it.