Megaman ZX – The Novelization
Chapter 13 – Blue Ocean
The next morning came, and Vent headed towards the command center to find out about the new missions and expected to see Aile already there waiting for him. As Vent came in, he was surprised as he only saw Prairie along with the operators in the room. Prairie turned around her chair as she noticed that someone had come into the room.
"It's good to see you here…" Prairie noticed that only Vent was behind her, "Vent? It's such a surprise to see you here earlier than Aile."
"Not you two Prairie…" Vent let out a sigh and frowned, "Is it really that weird for me to wake up earlier than Aile?"
Before Prairie could answer, the door slid open and Aile came into the room, "Sorry I'm late, Prairie! I don't even know why I overslept this morning!"
"Ah, yes…" Prairie coughed, "It's a good thing that you two are here now. Yesterday, the Guardian HQ's radar had detected another Biometal signature along with another data disk containing the other half of the recon unit report. I need you to head to Area J, the ocean side of the forest. You might need to stay underwater during the whole mission, so I've prepared some underwater supplies for you in the transerver room."
"Okay, we'll be on our way!" Aile turned to Vent, "Let's go!"
Vent and Aile headed toward the transerver to start packing, with Vent suddenly remembering something, "Oh yeah, since we're going to be underwater for the whole mission, we're gonna need Model L so we can save the time walking around on the bottom of the ocean!"
"I think that's a great idea!" Aile pulled out Model L from her pocket to check, "Okay, the Biometal's here," Aile turned back to Vent, "In case our opponent uses ice-based attack, we might need Model F. Do you have it with you this time?"
"Yep, I'm not going to forget bringing any of the Biometals again!" Vent pulled out Model F from his pocket to show it to her before putting in back in, "We make a pretty good team now, don't you think?"
"Yeah…" Aile slowly nodded and turned to him, "I guess we did… Now, shall we go?"
Vent nodded and the two of them teleported to ocean side of the forest. They pulled out their small oxygen tanks before they transformed into Model LX, with each having blue armor and aqua propellers on their helmets. They dived into the ocean, using their propellers to help them swim as they travelled underwater, passing through aquatic Mechaniloids.
Aile stopped swimming for a moment to look around before approaching Vent, "I think we can go back here through that," Aile pointed below them, "There's an underwater tunnel there, right below us now."
"Wow, you're right! Good eye, you have there, Aile!" Vent put both of his hands on Aile's shoulder as he smiled at her, "I'll count on you to find some good paths for us to use, okay?"
"U-Uh… yeah!" Aile looked away nervously, "D-Don't worry, you can count on me!"
"Great! Let's get moving again!" Vent let go of her shoulders and swam away.
Aile paused for a moment as she saw Vent swimming away before sighing sadly, 'I guess… We're nothing more than just friends and partners…'
Aile caught up to Vent, who had pulled out his staff, "Great…" Aile swam to his side and saw the fish-like Mechaniloid identical to the ones in the lake, "These territorial fish Mechaniloids again…" A few shrimp-like Mechaniloids and turtle-like Mechaniloids joined in the swarm, "… and friends…"
As the fish Mechaniloids were swimming towards them, Vent and Aile used their propellers to swim out of the way before spinning their staffs to destroy them. One of the turtle Mechaniloids shot out a small bomb out of its shell, which broke into three pieces going different directions. Aile was quick enough to swim out of the way, but Vent was hit by one part of the bomb.
Vent was knocked back and was about to hit the wall of spikes behind him, but he quickly reactivated his propellers and swam away from the spiked wall. Vent swam towards two incoming shrimp Mechaniloids and spun his staff, cutting through them. Vent quickly propelled towards Aile's back, where another shrimp Mechaniloid was coming at her.
"Look out, shrimpy!" Vent yelled before thrusting down his staff to cut through the shrimp Mechaniloid.
Aile turned as she heard Vent's yell and saw the shrimp Mechaniloid's remains sank, "Thanks!"
Vent gave her a thumb up before he swam up and cut off an anemone-like Mechaniloid sitting on a reef right above a hole on the reef before he and Aile proceeded through the hole into an area with more fish Mechaniloids, shrimp Mechaniloids, and turtle Mechaniloids. Vent deactivated his propellers and landed on the bottom of the ocean and dashed through the anemone Mechaniloid with his spinning staff.
Aile continued propelling above Vent as she spun her own staff in different angles, cutting through the Mechaniloids easily. The remains fell on Vent, who looked up while dodging the falling remains as saw how Aile had swum away from the Mechaniloids while spinning her staff around in different angles to cover more range of attack.
'Wow…' Vent looked up at Aile in awe, 'She's like dancing in the water… and she dances very gracefully and beautifully…'
Aile had cleaned up the Mechaniloids on her level and swam towards Vent, who was still staring at her, "W-What are you looking at?" Aile looked away, hiding away her blush.
"N-Nothing! Come on, I think the Biometal and the data disk is close by!" Vent nervously replied before turning away to walk farther on the bottom of the ocean as Aile swam next to him.
They passed through another hole on the reef and were stopped by a giant blue Pseudoroid. It had a body with the shape of a face on it with a pair of big propellers on its sides. Three long spikes spread down from its body, with the left and right spikes much shorter than the middle one. The Pseudoroid swam lower, looking down at the two Guardians who was a lot smaller than he was before laughing.
"So you're the great Mega Men that keep trying to interfere with our plans. I suppose it's asking too much to expect people so young to understand what we're trying to do. You should respect your elders and listen to us old folks," The Pseudoroid told the two, his voice echoing in the area.
Vent let out a sigh before folding his arms, looking annoyed, "Why should we even bother listening to shady types of old folks like you are? What you do is just hide the truth, so why do you even expect any respect from us?"
The Pseudoroid laughed once more, "Sometimes ignorance is bliss little ones! I am the Model L Pseudoroid, Leganchor. It looks like I'll have to teach you some respect."
Vent and Aile turned to each other with a grin before Aile spoke up, "Should we teach him a lesson instead?"
Vent nodded, "You bet!"
"Whatever it is you're planning behind my back, you're not going to ignore my lessons!" The Pseudoroid, Leganchor, opened up the mouth on his body and two ice dragons came out.
"Rock ON! Model FX!" Orange armor replaced Vent's and Aile's light blue ones and a pair of red knuckle busters appeared in their hands.
Vent and Aile jumped out of the way towards different directions, but the ice dragons kept following them. Vent jumped higher and aimed the ice dragon from above, destroying it, and Aile did the same as well. Vent landed back on the ground and charged both of his busters before he jumped up and slammed his left buster on Leganchor's body.
Leganchor was pushed back, heading towards Aile as she was standing behind him, but she countered by slamming her own left buster on the middle spike. Vent jumped up and was about to slam his right buster on Leganchor's body once more, but Leganchor's eyes on his body had shot out blindfolding yellow beam before ice chains with dragon heads on their ends bit Vent's right arm, freezing it.
Vent landed back on the ground and looked at his frozen arm, 'Their bites are freezing me!' Vent noticed a shadow over his head and looked up as Leganchor had swum above him and started pulling him in with his propellers, 'I-It's pulling me in!' Vent looked up and saw that he was being pulled towards one of the smaller spikes.
Aile quickly dashed under Leganchor and was about to aim her buster up at Leganchor's body, but she was pulled in as well, 'I… can't fight the current! Those propellers are too strong!'
"Yikes!" Vent fell back to the ground with his right half of his body frozen before the propellers stopped pulling Aile in.
"Vent!" Aile approached Vent worriedly, "Are you okay?"
"I'll… I'll be fine…" Vent struggled to get up due to the weight of the ice on his body before he managed to stand and looked up at Leganchor, "Shooting him in overdrive mode should finish him quick…"
"Okay, leave it to me!" Aile aimed her busters up, "You rest over there, Vent! You've done well so far!"
"O… kay…" Vent looked at her as she activated Model FX's overdrive mode and started shooting up on the Pseudoroid, who had sent out a pair of ice dragons at her, "Look out-OW!" Vent's effort to approach her failed as he lost his balance due to the ice and fell, but the fall broke some of the ice, "Alright, that'll do fine!" Vent pointed both of his busters up at Leganchor, "Overdrive!"
Vent and Aile began shooting in overdrive mode and destroyed the ice dragons, before they deactivated their overdrive modes and exchanged looks, nodding afterwards. Vent charged his left buster while Aile charged her right one and waited until the propellers started pulling them in. As they were getting closer to Leganchor's body, Vent and Aile slammed their busters together, knocking Leganchor into the ground before his body broke apart.
"Why… Why do you fight so hard? Why do you risk your life for those fools? Youth is wasted… on the young…" Leganchor's body parts glowed for a moment before they exploded, leaving a light blue Biometal floating above a data disk.
"How could anyone give my power to someone like that!?" The Biometal, Model L, suddenly burst out angrily before noticing the surprised looks on Vent's and Aile's faces, "I'm sorry, it'lltake some time to recover the password. I'll make sure it's available before youhave to take on Model W."
The Biometal turned into a light blue light before it went towards Aile's Biometal Model L and merged with the Biometal. Aile approached the data disk and picked it up before reaching for her communicator, "Prairie, we found the disk with the recon unit report on it. I'll try and read the data."
"Yes please," Prairie replied from the other side.
"The recon unit was wiped out by the act of one of our own. His name isSerpent and he was always the one most interested in the Model W fragment. Heerased the research data and vanished with the Biometal. I've never heard of aMaverick that powerful. Model W must have transformed him into 'something else'.We now know that Model W has the power to create an enemy much more terrifyingthan the Mavericks. I only hope that our sacrifice bought the commander enoughtime to escape. I don't have much longer. I pray that this data doesn't fallinto the wrong hands."
"So Serpent was involved in this…" Vent spoke up.
"Yes… That's why Serpent was awfully worried about the data leaking out," Prairie added, "But we can't let the information contained in it to get out until we know what exactly it is. For now, please send the disk along with the mission report."
"Okay," Vent turned to Aile, "Come on, let's go back through that underwater tunnel!"
"Yeah!" Aile nodded in agreement before noticing something, "But where's the entrance?"
"Y-Yeah… I wonder where it might be…" Vent replied, looking around in confusion.
"Vent! Aile! We have another problem!" Prairie's voice was suddenly heard from the communicators.
"What's the situation, Prairie?" Aile asked.
"I got a report from the unit on the ground area that there was a dig going near the city, and it seems to have caused a disturbance to the lava flow in the dig site. There's also a Biometal signature, so I need you two to head there to stop the dig and recover the Biometal part!" Prairie explained and ordered.
"Roger! We're on our way!" Vent turned to Aile, "It looks like we're going back to the way we come from…"
Aile shook his head and smiled, "There's no need for that," Aile turned around and pointed at a hole right behind the spot where Leganchor exploded, "The entrance is that way."
"Nice!" Vent patted Aile on her back before he put an arm around her, "Another nice job finding a hidden path!"
"T-Thanks…"