Author's Note:

- Megaman is owned by Capcom. That's it. Nothing more.

- IRL STUFF YEAHHHH (the joys of College, kiddies. It's still worth going, though...if you can afford it...)

Chapter 20: Everlasting Fight

"GAH!"

Devon cried out in pain as he flew backwards into a wall, courtesy a flying head from Nebula Grey. He creamed into it at a fast speed, making a nice Devon-sized hole in the wall. He quickly got back onto his feet and chucked a large light-esc spell (think: Ruinga, Photon, Pearl, whatever the hell floats your boat) at the beast, hitting the beast directly.

Nebula Grey either absorbed the blow completely or didn't take a single bit of damage; the monster didn't flinch whatsoever. Lila, meanwhile hit the flame floating around the evil being with an uppercut…erm, I mean Shoryuken. Yeah. Listen to her and go buy Street Fighter, kiddies! It's much more entertaining than Mega Man! (_)

While normally, direct contact with an "EEEVVIIILLL" flame would hurt, keep in mind Lila is a ghost. Instead of being hurt (as you would expect) Nebula Grey let out a roar of either pain or anger. Hard to tell. She immediately followed up with an arcane arte-erm, a second attack, this time a large light blast similar to Devon's earlier attack. After completing her attacks, she backflipped all stylishly towards he teammate, and glanced at him.

"Did you try, you know. Aiming at the obvious flame circling him?"

Devon pouted at her. "Didn't notice it."

Lila rolled her eyes. "I think you're letting emotions get the better of you. Now it's impacting your fighting skills."

"Lila, is now the time for this?!" he all but yelled back at her, quickly putting a one-handed barrier to avoid taking too much damage from Nebula Grey's face impact attack. You know the one.

Upstairs

"Buhahahaha!" Luther laughed in a hysterical manner, borderline evil, Saturday morning cartoon villain that shouldn't be taken too seriously, manner. "This is too perfect! That insolent balancer is fighting the clone?! Hahahahahaha! At the rate he's going, I'll be doing the rest of the home world a favor!"

The others gathered around the observation window, and noticed Devon and Lila fighting for their lives (and LOSING! Hahahaha…wait, why the hell am I laughing? Nothing wrong with abusing my own characters…). Geo glared at Luther angrily.

"What is your problem?! Something like this is happening and you consider it a good thing?!"

Luther grinned at the boy. "Trash like that scum there doesn't deserve to live. Balance, bah. Back home he was hated by most of the poplace for doing his job, when some of us dislike having balance in the world." He informed Geo, then turned towards Dash. "You want your information? Go and kill that thing."

Dash blinked, then jumped out of the window dramatically like in an action movie or something ridiculous like that.

"The rest of you feel free to follow me, we can observe this fight at a more safe locat—"

He was cut off by the sound of Geo transforming (wait, there's a sound?) and him jumping out the same broken window that Dash lept out of, in the same dramatic fashion. Luther frowned as he noticed his friends preparing to do the same.

However, a steel plating had risen up, likely to prevent others from being harmed and preventing the others from joining the fight.

"H-hey! What gives!" came Sonia's voice.

"I'm afraid you are just going to have to watch things go out. Now if you'll all follow me…"

There was dead silence from the group. Pat, who was closest to the window, let out a silent groan. "Geo…stay alive…"

Back downstairs

Dash was the first to reach the bottom, landing near Devon and Lila. The pair glanced at him in confusion.
"The heck are you doing here, masked guy?" Devon asked, confused.

Dash turned towards Nebula Grey. "That man, Luther said that he would help with my…memory problem if I slew this beast."

"Give me *one* good reason as to why I should trust you." Devon responded, not even hesitating for a moment to think of his answer. "And please be as clear as possible. I've had way too many cases as to why things won't listen to me because they refused to use reason."

Dash summoned the replica sword of Zerker with his hands, and entered a fighting pose. Before he could answer however, Geo landed near him, buster pointed at the beast. "I don't trust him either, Dev. But right now he's offering to help us…"

"…we die, he dies. I'm guessing that's what you're saying."

"I am not asking you to trust me…whatever that feels like. If you desire to trust me, let my skills in combat prove it." Dash responded in a flat tone, then charged at the beast. He spotted the flame quickly, noticing it being out of place, then hit it with a heavy slash.

Devon and Lila glanced at their younger friend for a few moments, who responded silently with a nod. Geo armed himself with ImpactCannon and lept into the air to avoid Nebula Grey's worst attacks and opened fire on the beast.

Lila meanwhile had gotten behind the beast and chucked a few base light spells (Ruin? Why not, works in FFXIII) at the beast, trying to get its attention.

Finally, Devon lept towards the flame and hit it a few times with his sword, while storing energy in his body. At the end of the 4th slash, he yelled out, "Balancer Blast!" and unleashed a moderately sized gray explosion at the beast, hitting both it and the flame.

All of the attacks seemed to have no effect; Nebs more or less shrugged them off without even flinching. Then, the beast let out a mighty roar and spewed out a low flame towards the ground. The flame quickly spouted into multiple flames, emerging through the area and singeing everyone slightly. The beast quickly followed up with another "Face Smash" attack, gravely injuring Devon and Geo.

As both fighters struggled to regain their balance, Nebula Grey followed up with another attack, this time summoning several meteors from nowhere to smite the enemies. The initial meteors caught Dash and Lila off guard; neither of them expected these flying flaming rocks, and took the blunt of the meteors.

"Regroup, I'll try healing us!" Devon cried out, motioning the others to come near him. The two of them nodded, and huddled together. While Dev slowly began to cast his healing spell, the remainder of the party started attack to buy some time; Geo with some Spreader blasts, Dash with Sonic booms from his sword, and Lila with various…uh…Ruins…or whatever you wanna call it…

"I won't let you die…" Devon mumbled, finishing the spell charge. As he was about to unleash it though, Nebula Grey either thought ahead of time or was expecting this, and chucked another face charge at the party. Since they had needed to be huddled together in order for Dev's healing tech to work…

(lawl wot a noob he should of switched to the Medic Paradigm)

The resulting explosion was far from ideal. Dash and Lila fainted, Geo was left on his knees, and Dev…well, *right* as he finished casting, he took a hit, and it had interrupted the main blunt of the spell. The result? He and Geo barely got healed, and while Lila and Dash got their wounds healed as well, it was in moot point since they had been KO'd.

From the watching place, Luther let out a hearty laugh. "Ha-ha! It seems like my clone is stronger than expected! Beating that insufferable balancer and the people's hero?! I have really outdone myself!"

The others had been watching in terror, seeing their teammates get curbstomped like that.

…well, expect Thiago. He had an "idea".

"Miau! Brother! Let's kill that thing and show off how strong we've gotten!"

Michael all but glared at his annoying brother. "You nuts?! That thing just beat the hell out of our teacher AND Geo! How the heck can we win?!"

Thiago grinned. "We'll use our ULTIMATE technique! The Heart of Steel! The power of the sun and shadows! Miau!"

"You need to stop reading those damn Mangaaaaaa-ahhhh!"

Michael was cut off by Thiago teleporting the two of them (wait, when the hell did he learn that?! Goddamn marty stus making up new powers on the spot and mastering them in a few sec-)

The pair landed near the unconscious bodies of Dash and Lila, in plain eyesight of Geo and Devon, both barely able to stand.

"Get out of here!" Geo yelled at them automatically, not wanting them to get themselves killed over trying to make a point.

"Miau! Alright, you scary monster! It's time you felt the wrath of the twins of DESTINY! MIAU! POWER!" he yelled out as dramatically as a 12 year old pretending to be his favorite power ranger. Of course, as he spoke, he began to glow…

Geo shook his head. "No no, listen to me you idiots! You can't win! Please leave before you get yourselves killed!" he glanced at Devon, then continued.
"Dev, say something to get them t—Dev?! "

The man in question was…well…having a nasty flashback.

A slightly young-man voice, presumably around age 17 (or at least having finished puberty…or hell, even Yami Yugi esc if you wanna go that far) spoke. "Don't worry about a thing…everything will be alright, okay?"

"Yami….Yuri…please, don't do this…" Devon pleaded, tears swelling up in his eyes. "You're the closest thing I've ever had to a family…I…I CAN'T LOSE YOU!"

A younger voice (uh…regular Yugi maybe?) spoke. "Hey, no crying now. You're all grown up now. Remember what you always say?"

"..Tears are just proof I'm alive…" Devon mumbled silently, fighting back tears. "Men only weep when they truly hurt…"

"Precisely!" the younger voice replied in a chipper tone. "Don't worry about us, this is for the greater good." As he finished, he begun to fade into a sword with a fractured crystal in the center of it on the ground.

The older voice spoke. "Heh. It was fun…watching you grow up…live for the three of us, okay?"

"No…"

"NO! DON'T GO!" Devon screamed out in a mixture of anguish and sorrow, tears streaming from his eyes. Geo stared at him in confusion.

The twins didn't listen to him. Either that or they didn't hear him…they had turned into a brilliant shade of azure and violet.

"Feel the first beats of time!" both twins said in a monotone, as energy continued to swirl about them. "BIG BANG!"

A brilliant flash covered the entire area, and when vision came to, Nebula Grey was no more. Geo could only watch in complete confusion as to what just happened.

While on the upside, it seemed that Ace was right; the twins had grown unnaturally strong in a short period of time, and needed to be dealt with accordingly...one the downside, there was complete confusion as to what the hell was going on in Devon's mind. While it was evident that he was a little too snide for his own good, Geo certainly didn't see this coming. Was he being snide because he couldn't help it? Or to mask his pain?

The only thing he knew for real was that things took a turn for the worse.

And with that, things go down the drain. Don't worry it's *only* going to get worse from here. Remember, if updates aren't twice a week, then it's because of IRL drama.

Later gaters.