This chapter's been sitting in my folder for like a few days because I have to be dumb and forget that I haven't uploaded it yet XD. I realized it when I was checking through my folders to write the next chapter and saw that I only had up to chapter 16 up in the site. Well, the chapter is up now and enjoy the action scenes of the younger Mega Men!

End of Era

Chapter 17 – World of Ice

The three young Mega Men were running through the endless hallways of the old lab. They had ignored the countless blinking lamps on their way, as well as old doors covered in vines. Those rooms they passed by weren't their objective at all because they were empty. They needed to find a room with a certain person in it.

They only needed to find a person, who had been their parents' comrade in the past. They needed to find some more answers and Grey was the only one who could give them. The next problem would be having him to cooperate in talking, but the obstacle in front of them had told them that Grey was purposely trying to hinder their way towards him.

The three of them had reached a big room filled with broken capsules on their right and left sides. Cables were scattered all over the room, mixed with some plant vines wrapping them. Some of the floor tiles were either broken or covered in mold, along with some glass shards on top of them. The air itself was humid, making it hard for Estelle and Storm to breathe properly.

The door on the other side of the room was blocked by a familiar figure. Phantom was standing in front of the doorway, blocking their way out. His cold eyes glared at the three newcomers as he stepped forward, stopping in front of them.

"This is as far as the two of you go," the ninja reploid had drawn one of his kunai knives and pointed it at the brunette of the group, "We only need her and we're free to discard anyone else with her."

"What do you want with me?" Estelle had stepped forward, standing face-to-face with Phantom, "Why is our parents' old friend giving you orders to destroy us?"

The brunette was about to aim her buster arm at him, only for the reploid's knife to knock her arm aside, "I have no obligation to answer."

"Estelle," the brunette turned to the direction of the green-haired teen as his gaze was directed at the reploid instead, "Go on ahead without us. Looks like this reploid isn't going to tell us anything and only wanted to block us from getting farther in."

Estelle looked at the door, which had been unblocked, but she turned back to the other two with a hesitant look, "But… what about you guys? We couldn't win against him even with Dad and Ashe helping-"

"Estelle doesn't need to worry!" Iris was the one to speak up confidently as she formed her ice staff in her hand, pointing it at the reploid in front of her, "Iris can handle him! After all, Iris was trained by one of the great Mega Men!"

Storm nodded in agreement, "We'll handle this on our own," the teen had put his pink sabers on both of his sides, slightly lowering his body, "You're the only one who can get through for now. We'll stall some time until the adults can get in to help!"

Estelle looked at her friends once more, still hesitant, especially when she saw that Storm's stance wasn't as strong as usual. He was a humanoid like her and the humid air was giving him a disadvantage in terms of survival, but Iris would do just fine as she was a reploid herself. She couldn't really leave her friends in trouble and not when she had some extra power she could use to help. She recalled that she had wielded the power before and that she was winning with that power, but her father's words echoed in her head.

"Don't use it unless you really need some extra boost."

She held back her intentions. She couldn't use it right away because she had to try to use her own strength to beat the reploid. She had the power to try and fight, but she had come to another dilemma as Prairie had told her before about the power she possessed.

"If you can't find your true strength, you won't be any different from the enemy mavericks."

Estelle didn't know what she was supposed to do. She wanted to help using her own strength for her friends, but she started questioning whether her transformation was her own strength. It was a bad time for her mind to go all over the place when she was supposed to be focusing on the battle ahead. She had answers to seek in the lab, but she was starting to get worried about the answers she was about to hear.

"Hey! Stop standing there like a fool and get moving already!" Storm's voice had snapped the brunette back to reality, seeing that the green-haired teen had his back against her, knocking away the raining kunai nearby, "Believe in our strength and get moving to find Grey!"

"B-Believe in… your strength…" Estelle looked over his shoulders to see that Iris was spinning her staff while freezing the kunai knives before they could hit either her or Storm. It was clear to her that they were determined to settle the fight without the brunette and she gave them a firm nod, "Okay, I got it. Just… don't die on me, okay?"

Storm let out a chuckle as Estelle dashed out of the room, "We're not weak, so expect to see us with this guy down soon!"

The teen was charging up his jets once more as he looked at the opponent in front of him, though his loud panting was telling his comrade that he wouldn't be able to fight there for long. He forced himself to air-dash towards Phantom, who had blocked his pink sabers with kunai knives, before he disappeared from the air and let the spinning shuriken he was riding on to hit the teen.

Storm took the attack head on before using his jets to hover slowly and back to the ground as Iris spun her staff to freeze her surroundings. The temperature of the humid air dropped as ice started forming in the corners of the room and the water within the air turned into falling snowflakes. The sudden change of temperature had made Storm's body turn cold suddenly and he released his jets subconsciously, letting himself fall on the slippery floor of ice.

Phantom had no issues with the slipperiness of the frozen floor as he used his ninja claw to hang onto one of the capsules' lids as he showered Storm and Iris with kunai knives. With the icy room being Iris' advantageous terrain, the young reploid easily skated on the floor to dodge the knives. For Storm, however, the elemental disadvantage was keeping himself from using the full potential of his Biometal and he was stuck on trying to knock away the knives.

The ninja reploid knew of the teen's weakness, proceeding with surrounding himself with purple shurikens flying around him as he swung closer to Storm. The teen was taking damage, even if they were minor scratches on his green armor, but Phantom kept on showing him with attacks. Iris had noticed the situation Storm was in and sent out ice dragons to help him out, but the ninja had nimbly dodged the dragons coming his way by climbing on top of the capsules.

The ice dragons in the end had hit Storm instead, bringing him down to his knees. The young reploid let out a gasp once she saw what she had done, before a shuriken had flown towards her. Storm shakily looked up to see Iris, who had taken the shuriken attack, having the metal blade stuck on her shoulder armor. The young reploid wasn't giving up as she tried facing the ninja face-to-face using her agile hands to maintain her staff for close range attacks.

The teen's hands were starting to go numb from the low temperature and the fact that his armor was slowly fading. He had taken enough damage that he was hitting the limit of Model H's transformation for himself, much to his dismay. He still had Model F to transform to, but the terrain change to suit Model F's fighting style would be a disadvantage to Iris' Model L.

"Storm!" the teen responded to his name being called, seeing that Iris was looking at him as she tried pushing back Phantom, "Leave him to Iris! Iris can handle him on her own!"

"But-UGH!" Storm was about to approach her, only to fall victim to the slippery floor, "H-He's tough! He's too strong for one of us to handle!"

"Iris knows!" the reploid replied firmly, "This is what Iris can do after Iris and Papa lost Mama years ago!" Iris took a step back to let the ninja reploid's guard down before delivering a wide slash across his chest and look back at Storm, "Go! Please!"

"Iris…" the teen looked at the reploid as she fought back the ninja reploid who was almost twice her size. He could see that while she wasn't physically strong, she had an advantageous terrain to exploit and her ice-based attacks were nothing to scoff at. He gave her a nod just as his transformation canceled itself, "Okay, I'll get Estelle back quick once we're done and come back to help!"

Iris only gave him a nod as Storm left through the door, leaving her to fight Phantom on her own. The ninja's expression didn't change even after knowing that he had lost one opponent to face him. The young reploid also didn't look like she was afraid of him, delivering close-ranged blows with her staff as the ninja easily blocked her attacks.

The way Phantom blocking her attacks had given the young reploid an idea of freezing the ninja reploid's kunai knife when it made contact with her staff. Iris gave him a playful smile, which Phantom had recognized, before an ice dragon came out from the floor between them and pushed him back. The ninja reploid had finally landed on the slippery ice Iris had created before icicles dropped down from the ceiling above him.

Phantom nimbly dodged the falling icicles in time before their pointed ends could pierce through his armor, carefully skating on the ice floor. As he was moving around, he threw more kunai knives at the young reploid as a camouflage for him to ride onto his bigger shuriken he summoned once more. Sounds of metal clanging echoed in the room as the kunai knives dropped in a quick rate were being knocked away by Iris' spinning staff.

The ninja reploid disappeared once more, launching the shuriken he left behind towards Iris, prompting her to dodge to the side. The shuriken was stuck on the wall beside the room's entrance with Iris lying on the ice floor from the quick dodge. Her armor was fading, telling her that she was at her limit, but the opponent she was facing had barely taken any damage from her attacks. While she had the techniques from seeing her father, she was lacking in power in her attacks.

"Are you done, young child?" Phantom was standing on top of a nearby capsule, looking down at her, "For someone bearing Fairy Leviathan's power, you're lacking the strength she possessed."

Iris had forced herself up, looking at the ninja reploid as she ignored her weakening body, "Iris… won't lose…!"

"It is futile," the ninja reploid folded his arms, "If you stop here and go back, I shall reconsider sparing your life."

"No!" Iris yelled out in frustration, causing icicles to pop out of the capsule where Phantom was standing on, much to his surprise, "Iris will continue! And Iris will try to find out Mama here from Papa's old friend!"

"Your mother, huh…?" Phantom was wincing in pain from being stabbed by the sudden icicles popping out from below him, "Then… you're with that reploid woman…"

"Where's Mama?!" Iris had heard what Phantom had said before creating more icicles to trap him, "Tell Iris where Mama is!"

"Ugh!" the reploid ninja could see that Iris was crying, which had led to her control over the Biometal to weaken.

Icicles were rapidly growing on the ice floor as Iris kept on yelling to demand her mother's whereabouts, ignoring the fact that her transformation was undoing itself. Phantom could take the chance to attack her at that moment, though the icicles had trapped him in it. The pointed ends had pierced through his arms and legs, freezing his limbs in the process, before the room temperature dropped once more.

Being a special reploid didn't help as he could start feeling cold all of a sudden, which wasn't supposed to happen when Phantom was lacking sensor components for the cold. In the cold situation he was in, he could slowly recall images which was initially foreign to him in his head. Were those residual data of the reploid he was based on?

He could see four other reploids in his head. One with green armor, similar to the armor the teen had when he transformed. One with light blue armor, similar to the one he saw on the young reploid below him. One with red and orange armor which he couldn't really recognize, but he felt like he knew him. The last of the four had blue armor, similar to the girl who had first left.

Hidden Phantom was the name of the reploid he was based on, but he took on that name instead of using the code number he was assigned to. At first he couldn't understand why he had taken a liking to the name when he was supposed to be a reploid built for combat. Combat reploids didn't really need a proper name, did they?

When more images of 'Hidden Phantom' were shown, he finally understood. He was a mere clone of the real Phantom, with his data being transferred into the new body he was using at some point in the past. He was fond of that name even if it wasn't truly his name, but he had a glimpse of Phantom's past life and his old comrades. He could finally understand what 'Craft' had said as he was dying, even if that reploid was just like him, a mere clone, of a dead reploid from the past.

As the ninja reploid didn't budge from his spot due to his death, Iris had already expended too much energy than she should have. Her unstable emotions had rendered her opponent unable to fight back in the end, but at the cost of her transformation. The young reploid fell on the floor of melted ice, with the room temperature going back to normal.

The icicles on the ceiling above her had melted as well, but only partially as they were solid enough when they suddenly fell from the ceiling. Iris had fainted right below them when they fell, but a purple shadow had got her out of the way, letting the icicle hit the ground and break apart. The other icicles soon fell as well, raining the room with shards of ice which were slowly melting.

"A very close call," Iris' rescuer commented as he threw his red scarf to the back of his neck before putting a hand on his communicator over his ear, "This is Siarnaq. Guardian Base operator, I have an injured ready to be transferred out."

Siarnaq cut the transmission seconds later before Iris' unconscious body disappeared from his lap. The dark-haired reploid turned to the room's exit before running out of the room, ready to offer some help to the next young Mega Man.

The issues with the younger Mega Men transforming aren't planned when I started out with the story's plot, but the time limit for the Biometals' usage and the limit from damage taken worked somehow...

Anyways, the next chapter should be done somewhere around tonight or tomorrow and assuming that I don't forget again, it'll be up by then.