First off, I need to say one thing: I will no longer be updating ANY fics on this website. If you wish to continue reading my works, please go to my AO3 account (also RandyPandy).
Now, without further ado... no one is more surprised than I am that I finally posted a chapter of this fic. I can't promise that the next chapter won't take another three years, but at the moment, I do feel like continuing this fic. Fair bit of warning, OCs will start to appear in this chapter, but Vent and Model C will always end up being the focus of the fic in general.
Étoile Space Planetarium was not how the twins remembered it when they got there. Having used a Trans Server to reach Area O and then walking to their destination, Vent paused when he noticed just how ordinary it looked.
The building was huge, of course, with a gated entrance and a large sign saying 'WELCOME'. People milled about the entrance, mostly families with their children, chatting amongst themselves as they walked around. All in all, it didn't look like there was anything important going on here whatsoever, and he had to wonder why someone had wanted them to come here.
Hopefully there wouldn't be a Maverick attack of some sort.
He glanced over at his sister, who looked equally puzzled, and he didn't need to glance down at his pocket to know that Model C (and probably Model X) was baffled as well.
"…Th-This makes no sense. U-Unless they w-wanted us to come here wh-when something happened?"
"Beats me," Vent said, shaking his head.
"Prairie," Aile asked, speaking into a handheld device, "do you have any intel on this place or know anything about it?"
After a few moments, Prairie responded. "Étoile Space Planetarium was built almost twenty years ago by Dr. Citron Jus Étoile, originally a resident of the nearby city 'Amore Ville', as a way to educate people about outer space. A lot of knowledge was lost in the previous wars, and some of that knowledge had been rediscovered by archaeologists – it's believed that Dr. Étoile was one before going to astronomy. While it started off small, it has gotten larger and expanded into the building that you see today, attracting visitors from all over the world."
"Makes sense," Vent murmured. "It was already up and running ten years ago when Boss brought us here, and I don't remember it being this huge. I guess it must have expanded in the past few years. So what do we do now?"
"Go in, I suppose," Aile said. "It's probably best not to Megamerge and just run in, at least not until we know if something's wrong. I'll buy us tickets and we can pretend to be college students looking around while Prairie and the others try to find out why it could be important."
"…I wonder how much of the past they've found," Model X mused, and then stilled. "Hm?"
"What's wrong, X?" Aile asked, pausing from where she'd been about to approach the ticket counter.
"I could have sworn that I felt something… Maybe I'm crazy."
"No," Model Z spoke up suddenly. "I feel it too. I almost missed it, but there's something here, something that we Biometals can sense."
"Y-Yeah, I can f-feel it. It f-feels… similar to us?" Model C added.
Vent caught on what they were talking about immediately. "Something similar to the three of you… a Biometal. Model W?"
Aile's eyes widened. "Maybe. Alright, I'm going to go buy tickets so we can get inside. Wait here, Vent." And with that, Aile stepped over to the ticket booth, talking to the girl there.
Vent glanced down at Model C. "I wonder if there really is a Model W here?"
"If th-there is, then I h-have multiple q-questions," Model C said with a deep sigh. "M-Maybe that girl, Prairie, c-can dig up m-more information about th-this place."
Aile came back just then, handing Vent one ticket. "Okay, let's go. Remember to take a look around and note everything."
"No worries, sis, you can count on us," Vent said with a smirk.
Vent had to try hard not to get distracted by the exhibits. A holographic projection of the solar system had been cool to look at, and he felt the childish glee that he had felt when he had been six and visiting here with Giro and Aile coming back. It took everything he had in him to not reach out and poke the hologram planets.
Model C didn't seem to be as impressed by it all, and occasionally tossed an unflattering comment about how he could have done better, and how he'd almost gotten close enough to the moon at some point in his life, though he was mostly quiet.
While the twins had stuck together at first while looking through the first few exhibits, they had eventually split apart just so that they could cover more ground and try to figure out why the Biometals were feeling odd.
It was a weekday morning, and most children and teenagers would be at school. A few people glanced over at Vent and Aile, though it appeared that most assumed that they were college students here either to relax or for a class.
Frustratingly, though, their searches yielded no information whatsoever, and Vent was starting to get annoyed as he and Aile went to the food court to meet up.
His sister was already there by the time he arrived, tucked away in a corner booth and sipping on a latte that smelled like it was pure chocolate and nothing else. Vent went to the counter to purchase a flat white for himself, idly glancing at the headlines on the TV screen as he waited in line. Nothing too interesting seemed to be happening at the moment, though he did hear the words Slither Inc. and tuned in for a moment.
"The new president of Slither Inc., Giselle Beaufort , has commented on the direction that the company will take in the future—"
"Flat white!" the barista called out, tearing Vent's attention away from the screen.
"Thanks!" After receiving his drink, Vent went to sit down beside his sister. Slither Inc. could wait. "Any luck, Aile?"
"Nothing," Aile said, shaking her head as she set her drink down. "X seems anxious, but neither he nor Z were able to pinpoint exactly why, or even where, it is coming from. But there probably is something here, because I know that these two wouldn't worry otherwise."
"Even C is worried, and he's not entirely sure why," Vent said, sipping his mocha; he needed all the coffee that he could get right now. A beep came from the handheld that Aile was holding, and he glanced at it. "Huh. Must be Prairie."
Aile tapped the button to listen. "Hi Prairie. We haven't found anything yet…"
"I see. That's unfortunate, though I have managed to find some more information about this facility and Dr. Étoile. Apparently it was funded by Slither Inc., about a year before the two of you would have been born, and that there is a basement level."
Vent and Aile looked at each other. Nothing that they had found so far indicated that a basement was even accessible. "Do you have a map?" Aile asked. "There doesn't seem to be any stairs leading to a basement."
"We just found one. We'll send it to you right now."
"What about Dr. Étoile? If this place belongs to him, then maybe there's something suspicious about him," Vent asked, curious. The name seemed to ring a bell, but he wasn't entirely sure why.
"Information was hard to find without access to Legion's database, but we were able to find some information. Let's see… There's something here about his family. He's human, both parents are deceased, died of natural causes many years ago. Twin brother, died in a Maverick raid near Amore Ville two years ago, and a younger sister, died in a Maverick raid in the Area A forest three years ago. Had a wife as well; she was found dead at… the amusement park in Area H."
"How horrible," Aile murmured. It seemed like someone else had lost family there, too. "Is there anything else, Prairie?"
"Yes, he has twin daughters, 28 years old. One of them, Crème Étoile, manages the planetarium. I'm not sure if she would know anything, but if you can somehow manage to get access to the basement from her, you might be able to discover something."
"Do you really think that she'd just let us get access to the basement?" Vent asked, incredulous.
"I doubt it, but I'm unsure of where else to go at the moment. If you can get access legally without breaking any laws, that would be great, but…"
But they would have to do it illegally if they couldn't, and that would be dangerous if they got caught: it would besmirch the reputation of both the Guardians and Giro Express if they did.
"We'll see if we can figure out a way to get in there. Thanks for your help, Prairie," Aile said, chewing on her lip, before breaking the connection.
They'd spent the next several minutes sitting in the coffee shop, quietly muttering to themselves as they tried to figure out what they had to do to get into the basement area.
"Well, let's ask one of the staff if there are any exhibits that we haven't seen yet – a lot of people think that we're college students. Maybe we could ask them if there are any future exhibits that are still in progress that we haven't seen? Some of the rocks they have here are space rocks," Vent suggested. "Maybe we can ask if they've found some more."
"And if they haven't, what good will it do?" Aile countered. They had long finished their drinks.
"Or we could also ask if they've found any other artifacts from Old Era space museums?" Vent replied. "Anything. Just so that we have something interesting for our apparent 'school report'."
Aile considered that for a moment. "…That could work. One of us could talk to one of the… managers, or something, since they'd probably be more likely to know, and the other could look around a little. I only wish Model P was here, he was very good at things like this…"
She trailed off, and for a moment Vent was concerned that she was going to cry. "Hey," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "We'll find him and the others, okay? Don't worry." She nodded, and Vent gave her a smile. "Come on, let's go see if we can find something."
They now had a new goal to check out. Having finished their drinks, they stepped out of the café and went back to the main part of the planetarium, ignoring the newsreel that was still playing on TV.
"Aeolus Avisé, son of Governor Zephyros Avisé, is still missing; however no ransom for his safe return has been declared just yet—"
The staff had been surprisingly cooperative when Vent and Aile had put their plans into motion, and soon enough, they were speaking with the owner of the museum, Crème Etoile.
She seemed very… ordinary, with strawberry blond hair in a ponytail and glasses. "Ah, you must be the two that requested some more information. I am Dr. Crème Etoile, the owner of this museum. And you two are?"
"I'm Vanille," Aile said without even hesitating. "Vanille Lux."
How had Aile so easily come up with a false name like that?! Vent tried not to show his panic as he floundered for a name before blurting out, "Uh, I'm Parfait Lux."
Though Aile kept up a perfect poker face, he could almost feel her incredulity at the name that he'd come up with, and Model C's hysterical laughter and Model X's deep sigh didn't help, either.
To Crème's credit, she didn't bat an eye. "Vanille and Parfait? It's nice to meet you both. I heard from my staff that you were looking for some interesting information for your university projects."
"Yeah," Aile said with a smile. "I mean, I don't expect to see anything that's not ready to be unveiled to the public, but if there was anything that wasn't part of the main exhibit that we could learn about, that would really help us out."
"Absolutely," Crème said with a nod. Her expression was bright. "In the basement we have several exhibits that are on rotation. That is mostly due to space reasons, but people are welcome to see them if we are asked about them. Do you believe that would do?"
"I think so! Could you show us, Dr. Étoile?" Aile asked.
"Please, call me Crème," the blond woman said. "Dr. Etoile reminds me of my father. Now, if you would just follow me downstairs…"
The basement area of the museum was like the remainder of the museum, though there were several locations with 'STAFF ONLY' signs plastered all over them requiring cardkey access. Crème ignored most of them, though she did take them through a few of them to show them some of the exhibits.
Honestly, Vent didn't mind looking at the majority of the space rocks and artifacts, even if it was just for show, and his enthusiasm at seeing them wasn't fake, which helped lend credulity to their 'story'. He peppered Crème with questions, even as Aile made a show of jotting notes down.
It was when they were in a more secluded area that Vent noticed they were in a part of the facility that didn't have all those signs plastered all over them that he slowed down behind Crème and Aile, and then doubled over. Both women stopped immediately, turning around.
"Are you okay, Parfait?" Aile asked, concern on her face.
"Ugh… I don't know…" Vent said, clutching at his stomach. "M-Maybe it's something I ate…"
Crème's nose wrinkled a little bit, but she kept her professionalism and pointed Vent down one of the hallways. "There is a bathroom if you go down that hallway and then take the first two rights." Vent immediately darted in the direction that she had pointed towards.
Shaking her head, Aile rolled her eyes and pointed at Vent as she turned back to Crème. "Parfait's really stupid sometimes. I'll just take notes for the both of us. But he had better pay me back for it later!"
That was all Vent heard before he was too far away, and while he was going to get back at Aile later for the 'stupid' comment, he had more important things to worry about. Such as finding information. He headed in the general direction of the bathroom, only changing his direction and poking his head into the few empty rooms that were there.
One of the rooms had a computer, which was where he stopped. That was promising.
He slipped inside after making sure that there was no one else around and sat down in front of it. Aile was keeping Crème distracted, and the rest of the small basement area seemed to be empty. Still, he knew that he only had minutes to look around before Crème got suspicious and went looking for him no matter how much Aile distracted her.
"Alright," he muttered, glancing at the computer screen inside her office. "Model C, you any good at hacking?" he asked the Biometal.
"Hmph, of c-course. G-Give me one second…" Model C mentally connected with the computer, examining the data for a moment before he started doing something. A username and a series of stars were typed in, and the computer accepted it. "Okay, w-we're in."
"Cool." Vent glanced at the various documents, trying to figure out where to even start. He peeked through several folders, occasionally glancing at the clock to make sure that he wasn't taking too long, and was about to consider the entire thing a loss and head back out when he spotted a document that was simply labeled 'Biometals'.
"S-So these p-people know what the B-Biometals are…" Model C mused. "O-Open it!"
"Right…" Vent quickly copied the file onto his external storage before he opened it up on the computer.
It appeared to be a simple text document, and didn't seem to have much written on it, but it was very obvious exactly what it was about. If the name of the file hadn't given it away, the first few lines did.
Model A: The Copy Megaman
Status: Missing/Stolen by Raiders.
Notes: This was discovered by an archaeology team in an abandoned laboratory. No one is certain who or what this Biometal was based off of, but it was invaluable as a reference for creating other Biometals. It was unfortunately stolen by a Raider team, and by the time they were located, it had already been sold off to an unknown person.
Model B: The Rival Megaman
Status: Missing.
Notes: This Model was created for Set 2 and was reverse-engineered off of Model A. It was unfortunately stolen by a Raider team, and by the time they were located, it had already been sold off to an unknown person.
Model C: "The Yellow Megaman"
Status: Unknown Cinq Ville civilian.
Notes: All information about this Biometal is unknown as is the identity of the owner. The only reason its existence is known is due to a video of them fighting Mavericks.
That last one had Model C fly up in indignation. "Th-They wrote down that I was t-the 'Yellow' M-Megaman, too!" Model C hissed, seething. "It's Hero Megaman. Hero Megaman!"
"It's okay, C, we'll correct everyone that calls you that when we get the chance, alright?" Vent shushed the Biometal, though there really was no reason to as it was unlikely that Crème would be able to hear him if he was too loud. She didn't seem to have heard Model C's hysterical laughter earlier, anyways.
The list continued on in a similar fashion, with a lot of different "Models" but Vent decided that he could check on those later. On a hunch, he scrolled down to the bottom, and his suspicions were confirmed.
Model W: The Evil Megaman
Status: Unknown.
Notes: An unknown number of fragments and special 'cores' seem to exist, and multiple of both have been reported as destroyed over past two centuries. Suspect connections with the "Witch" and the "Grim Reaper" of lore, but there is no confirmation as to their motivations. WARNING: THIS BIOMETAL IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT USE THIS BIOMETAL OR CONTACT ANYONE ASSOCIATED WITH IT.
That was all Vent needed to see before he decided that he probably should close the text file and head back to where Aile and Crème were; he had copied it, so they would have time to read it later. Not only were the Biometals he recognized were written here, but there was a whole slew of Biometals that he didn't recognize. Aile hadn't told him about them, which meant that she hadn't found a reason to…
Or she didn't know that they existed, either.
Either way, it was valuable information, and he quickly covered his tracks on the computer with Model C's help, logged off, and was about to slip out of the room when a photograph caught his eye. He would have picked it up, but he didn't want anyone to know that he had been there, because one of the figures looked familiar.
It was a photograph of what appeared to be the Étoile family, as there were four figures in it: a man with black hair and glasses over blue eyes, a blonde-haired woman with green eyes, a little boy with black hair and green eyes, and a little girl with blonde hair, green eyes, and glasses. The little girl was a dead ringer for Crème, and he was sure that it was her, which meant that the man was probably her father Citron; he wasn't sure who the little boy was, since Crème supposedly had a sister and not a brother. But it wasn't them that he was focused on.
The blonde woman looked familiar. Very familiar. Vent frowned as he studied her, trying to figure out where he had seen her before. Prairie had mentioned that Citron's wife had died at Area H… if this was the wife, maybe he had seen her at the park that day?
He gazed at the picture for a moment, and then quietly went to slip out of the room. For good measure, he really did go to the bathroom before heading back to where Aile and Crème had been left. "Sorry," he told them. "I really wasn't feeling that great, but I feel better now. I think it was something that I ate earlier."
Aile sighed at him. "Parfait, next time, maybe you should avoid sushi from the mall."
"Yeah… sorry Vanille," he said sheepishly, keeping the act up.
Crème wrinkled her nose for a moment. "Mall sushi? That was a poor decision."
"That's what I told him," Aile said with a shake of her head. "Idiot. Anyways, you were you saying, Crème…?"
After some more time, Aile and Vent claimed that they had gotten enough information for whatever college project that they were working on, had thanked Crème, and had left the planetarium. As soon as they were out of earshot, Aile turned to Vent.
"Did you find anything?"
"Yeah," Vent said. "Let's get back to either Guardian HQ or Giro Express before I tell you about it, though."
"Giro Express, then," Aile said, after checking with the Guardians. "They're currently at another part of Cinq Ville and will meet us there in a few hours."
The two of them found the nearest Trans Server and took it to Giro Express, with Vent unlocking the doors and letting Aile in before stepping inside himself. It was already past closing time, and he could see that Sho had already locked up for the night and had left.
As soon as they were behind closed door, Aile turned to her brother, her expression serious. "Vent, what did you find? Do you know why the Biometals felt odd?"
"Unfortunately not, but there is something." Vent went over to his personal computer, the one that did not have important Giro Express files on it, and booted it up. "I did find what appeared to be a list… of Biometals."
"What?" Aile leaned closer, frowning as Vent opened the list up to reveal the full list.
"I skimmed a little of it earlier, but didn't get a chance to look at the whole thing," he told her, taking a deep breath. "Take a look."
"Model A, Model B, Model C…" Aile didn't move, other than her eyes skimming the page as she took in the information that she was seeing. "…There are so many Biometals other than X, Z, C, the others, and W. Just how many of them are there?"
"I dunno," Vent replied, glancing through the list himself, "but you may wanna look at the Model X and Z entries, near the bottom."
Model X: The Blue Megaman
Status: 2 Fragments confirmed.
-Fragment 1 – Unknown Guardian.
-Fragment 2 – Unknown Pseudoroid.
Notes: The creator of this Biometal is unknown. Readings of two fragments were detected; one fragment is in Guardian hands. The other fragment is with a Pseudoroid, whose location we are working to track.
Model Z: The Red Megaman
Status: Unknown.
Notes: The creator of this Biometal is unknown. Reading of one fragment detected; however, the energy of the readings implies that there is a second fragment out there somewhere. The first fragment was previously in the ownership of Girouette Wiley of Giro Express, but disappeared after his death (method unknown). The location of this second fragment is unknown.
"Two fragments—" Aile, surprised, looked down at X. "X, Z, is there something you'd like to tell us? If you guys have two fragments, how on Earth were you able to give me your passwords?"
X seemed perturbed. "I don't know. I only know that I don't have all of my normal abilities."
"Maybe these fragments were created afterwards?" Z suggested. "I was unaware of having a second fragment, but am missing several abilities."
"Well, that'd m-make sense," C muttered. "If that Prairie girl's sister s-somehow was alive, a-and made it afterwards, and th-this Étoile family somehow found out."
"Other than the names of the Biometals and our second fragments, is there anything else that sticks out?" Z asked.
"A lot of it," Vent said, scrolling up. "But unless we manage to track the location of X's Pseudoroid buddy, this one might be worth pursuing immediately."
Model R: The Unawakened Megaman
Status: 2 Fragments confirmed.
-Fragment 1 – Unknown Guardian.
-Fragment 2 – Missing.
Notes: This Model was created for Set 2 and was reverse-engineered off of Model A. The data used as the core was unable to be reconciled with each other and was split into two fragments. One fragment appears to have ended up in Guardian hands, but the other fragment is missing.
"'Unknown Guardian'?" Aile echoed. "I definitely didn't have Model R. That means that there's another Guardian that has one?!"
Vent bit his lip. "We should definitely contact Prairie and ask her if she knows anything about it. And then there are the other fragments that are outright missing, but they know it exists."
"Hm…" Aile mused. "If we find the Guardian that has Model R, maybe their fragment can pinpoint the missing fragment? Then that would be two more Biometals out of enemy hands…"
But if that was the case, surely there had to be a reason that they hadn't done that yet?
"Well, if we want to ask about a Guardian, we should talk to Prairie about it once we get back to Guardian HQ," Vent suggested.
Aile shook her head. "We could, yeah. I don't think it's anyone regularly stationed on board the ship, so it could be someone on their ground base. But we'd have to ask them to make sure."
"W-Well what are we w-waiting for?" Model C asked impatiently. "Let's g-go to Guardian HQ once they get h-here!"
"But before we do…" Aile said, her voice trailing off before she turned to Vent. "'Parfait'? Seriously?!"
"S-Shut up!"