Bonus III

If Ciel surviving her ordeal was unexpected, then Pandora and Prometheus still being alive was absolutely shocking.

What started as a surprisingly calm, peaceful, and lovely day suddenly (and quite literally) exploded in their faces. Vent looked up from underneath a partly-reconstructed engine, swearing as he bashed his head on a pipe while scrambling to get to his feet. Aile was behind him in seconds as they dodged obstacles and jumped over various parts and people in their haste to get to the source of the disturbance. Despite the general chaos of the shipyard, where the Grand Nuage was currently docked for repairs, it didn't take long for them to hone in on the cause. Cruel laughter echoed overhead. Mavericks attacked, blasting energy cannons at everything that moved, while Guardians ducked behind crates, barrels, or whatever other scenery they could as they countered the invasion. Right as the two Mega Men arrived, there was a heavy slam as something, or someone, landed on a box not far from them.

"Well, well, well. Look who it is!" Aile cursed, Vent tensing up as the Grim Reaper of Mega Men smiled down at them cruelly, "Nice to see you two survived the Ouroboros! Was hoping I'd get a shot at you personally!"

"Looks like we're not the only ones who survived. A few tonnes of ocean still wasn't enough to cool you off, was it?" Vent returned, hand reaching towards his pocket. Aile followed suit cautiously.

Prometheus, eager as he was, didn't quite seem ready to fight yet. His smile faltered for a moment at the rebuttal, "Tch. Something like that." He stood up tall, surveying the area around himself. Most of the minor mavericks had either been dealt with or backed off. The other Guardians in the area stopped, saw what was going on, and wisely retreated as well. Prometheus grinned cockily, "I heard an interesting little rumor though… that the so-called Model ZX Mega Men were no longer ZX Mega Men!" Vent and Aile straightened in horror at being found out. Prometheus, well aware of their concern, happily continued, "Vent and Aile, theZX Megaman… now, only the Model X Mega Men!"

If Prometheus was expecting panic from them at the reveal, he was sorely mistaken. The siblings actually seemed to sag in relief at his statement. He gave them a look, "Eh? Not worried that I figured it out? You're weakened!"

"Oh believe me, I'm not really sure I like the fact that you know all that," Vent started. He huffed and looked at his sister, "Aile? Any idea how that could've leaked?"

"Not a clue. If it was a mole in the ranks, Prometheus would be spouting something else right now. Can't be one of our Guardians."

Vent nodded, "True enough."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Prometheus scowled, eyeing the two suspiciously. It's clear he was expecting a very different reaction, and centuries of experience was telling him that he was definitely not going to like the answer to this little quandary.

The siblings ignored him for a moment, "Hey, Aile, think we should do it?"

"Let me check. Hey! Carrelet! What're communications like right now?"

As Aile yelled, a dark-haired Guardian, hair sticking out from under his helmet, peered out sternly from behind a crate several metres away. "Congre just got back to me about it. All outside signals have been cut, no satellites looking in on the area, short range correspondence only."

Aile smiled a little too eerily, "Good. Congre might be a coward, but man is he good at communications."

"And getting somewhere really fast when he wants to. Speaking of, I can see where this is going. Time to follow his example! Have fun you two," The Guardian replied before quickly vacating the area.

Prometheus's eyes narrowed as he watched the man leave, "You two are awfully casual about having your communications cut. There's no way you can call for help! Aren't you even a little worried?" He tried to intimidate them, leaning towards them maliciously, but he was only met with matching expressions.

"Nope."

"We're not the ones who'll need to call for help."

And with that, they megamerged. Crimson light blossomed out as their long hair turned pale, golden strands whipping around in a fell blast of power. Deep red armour appeared on their forms as each summoned a pair of matching magenta swords. Prometheus went ramrod straight, his face blank.

"What. Okay. Whoa, hold on, what?!" He stuttered, his expression matching that of a shark that'd just bitten into a surfboard instead of a seal. In other words: offended, confused, and utterly cheated, "That ain't right!" He reached up to his ear, where there was some apparently some sort of communication device, "Oi! Pandora! Gonna need you over here real quick, we got bad intel! They can still use their ZX form!" He snarled, brandishing his scythe, then paled when he seemingly got a response, "Hold on, what do you mean you already knew that? You're looking at one now? No no no, that's not...?" He peeked up at Vent and Aile, appearing somewhat haunted, but the two merely shrugged and politely let him continue. He noticed this, and almost seemed grateful as he returned to his conversation, "Pandora, thatcan't be right. You're staring at a megamerged Vent? You're shitting me. First of all, why didn't you tell me sooner? You ass. Second of all, that's not Vent. Vent's right here. Yes, I'm pretty damn sure! Wait. Oh? Yeah. Yeah, okay, good luck." He looked up at the two, utterly nonplussed, and stated, "There's three of you now. Somehow. There's three of you! What the hell."

"Oh man, look at his face! This is great!" Aile snickered.

Vent gave their foe an almost apologetic look, "Hey, sorry man. Although considering how that thing with Giro went down, maybe I'm not sorry. Nope. Not at all." His eyes hardened, and his posture became downright predatory, "You know, we've been the heroes, helpers, and overall doormats for long enough. We've suffered and strived and sacrificed. You may have been working on someone else's orders, but it was your actions that led to Giro's death. I thought we'd gotten over it long ago. But the anger, the hurt, it never really goes away you know?

"You killed Giro, you broke into our ship, you kidnapped our friends, and now you're here spitting in our faces and laughing at us after we've lostanother friend! You probably intended to kill us here since we're down a biometal!" Aile hissed, "You know what? In any other circumstance, I'd say that ambushing us would have been a great idea. We're supposed to be weakened, trapped in a corner, and licking our wounds from Ouroboros. As far as anyone knows, we should be easy pickings! Well guess what, asshole, we aren't going down so easily! We had a backup, and you forced us to use it. It's payback time!" She growled at the man, the sound utterly furious.

Prometheus retreated slightly, sensing as the tables turned on him, "Huh. Pretty violent now, aint'cha? Who knew you had it in you? Alright then, if that's how it's going to go down-!" He was cut off by a pained holler. After a piercing shriek of thick metal, something white slammed into the ground nearby, pieces of rooftop coming with it. Prometheus dodged some fragments and was startled when he saw the cause, "Pandora!"

His sister, looking a little out of sorts, didn't have a second to spare. She leaped out of the way just in time. Her attacker barreled into the ground with such force that boulders were launched into the space around them, one or two ricocheting off of metal containers and leaving sizable dents. Omega cackled gleefully, already moving to pounce as Aile suddenly yelped, "Omega! Collateral! Collateral damage, youidiot!"

Omega, the red menace they'd come to know so well, had already shot through the air after his prey. When he heard Aile's demand he stopped suddenly, teetering on the top edge of a crate with energy pulsing in his fist, Pandora a mere handspan away from him. The pause gave Prometheus just enough time to come to his sister's defense. He lashed out wickedly with his scythe, the energy weapon striking home. Omega fell to the ground, got up, brushed himself off as if completely unbothered by the damage he'd just received, and pouted, "She started it! What else was I supposed to do?!"

Aile growled, "Avoid blowing up The Grand Nuage while we're in the middle of repairing it you absolute dunderhead!"

"Meh, what's one more little scratch?"

"That's exactly what you said about the training room, andlook how that went!"

Vent shook his head at the antics. The Model W siblings watched the proceedings with no small amount of trepidation. Pandora was the first to speak up, "While this does… answer a few things? It also brings up more questions. Three of them?"

"Yup. Three of them. And one of them's a nutcase? Guess this explains why they've been so secretive sometimes. Or, like, oddly aggressive other times," Prometheus huffed. He turned to Vent, "Slight aesthetic changes aside… seriously? What's all this about?" He looked down quizzically, muttering loudly to himself, "That guy's name… it's familiar somehow?"

Vent frowned, "Look, you don't need to know. But it's not going to leave this room one way or another. Or maybe it is, because we're taking this fight outside."

Pandora hummed, "Hmph. You've surprised us. But this… one more ZX Mega Man won't save you."

"You think we don't have our own tricks up our sleeves? You won't be able to force us out now that we're at the heart of your base! Bring it!" Prometheus taunted wildly. He swung his weapon, leaping at Vent recklessly.

Vent met the attack head on, his demeanour oddly callous, "We're forcing you out. You don't have a choice!" He snarled, "Besides! One more ZX Mega Man? By the time we're done with you, you'll wish that was the case!"

Pandora's staff glowed, Omega and Aile called a ceasefire, and the battle began in earnest. The immediate area had been long vacated by anyone but a couple of rather unfortunate, rather stupid mavericks, and thank heavens for that. The devil reploid was toning himself down for sure, as were Vent and Aile, but it quickly became apparent that they weren't at the same power level as before. Every once in a while one of them would release extra charged blasts out of nowhere, or let loose an elemental attack, each new tactic catching the Model W fighters off guard. One particularly over-eager assault from Omega shattered a wall, Prometheus gulping as he surveyed the aftermath of the strike he'd barely dodged. Vent shouted angrily, "Damn it Omega! Collateral!"

Pandora breathed in sharply, "Holy shit. I remember now!"

Prometheus jumped away from Aile's sword slash, looking up with more than a little concern at his sibling's choice of language, "I don't like your tone, sis. You remember? Remember what?"

"Remember our research? Destiny of Destruction?" Pandora was cut off as she was forced to warp out of the way of a blast. She reappeared next to her brother, "Source of Model W's combat data? The God of Destruction?"

The fight hit a lull as both sides regrouped. Prometheus appeared confused for about a second, "The God of Destruction? What the hell does some ancient dead dumbass have to do with oh holy shit." Prometheus gawked as the reality of their situation came to him. His gaze snapped to the other three fighters, "This isn't a ZX megamerge, is it? You! Where the hell did you find-!? Oh for FUCK'S sake!"

He probably shouldn't have taken the time to yell. The newly-opened wall led to the front of the repair bay, and one final assault from Omega was all they needed. A well timed giga attack from the red reploid crashed into the Model W pair out of nowhere, ruthlessly launching them through the room and out onto the runway just beyond the open hangar doors. Debris scattered, metal and concrete alike bouncing off the tarmac as they were sent tumbling from the blow. Outside, worse for wear, Pandora and Prometheus picked themselves up. Pandora spat out blood and dirt, giving the ZX siblings a nasty glare. Prometheus spoke for her, "You know what? I'd normally say that all is fair in war, but what the hell?! First we take away your biometals, and you two just go and find a stronger one!? Then you casually recruit alegendary maverick while we're all looking the other way?! This is cheating!"

Aile grinned cockily, a rather interesting turnabout from earlier, "What's so unfair about us kicking you to the curb once again? It's nothing new. Why so salty?"

"You're supposed to be a bunch of goody-two-shoes doing stupid heroics, not teaming up with bullshit level genocidal maniacs! That's why!" he squawked. "Cheating! That's just cheating!" He screeched, sounding extremely offended, but also? More than a little jealous. Pandora, for her part, didn't add anything to the argument; Her indignant expression alone said enough. (Vent figured that, if you shoved a picture of it onto a t-shirt with a funny caption, it probably would have sold out. He tried not to burst out laughing.)

That's when Vent's and Aile's victorious expressions were wiped off their faces. With a sudden and rather involuntary de-merge, they were back in their Model X forms. The two startled, looked at each other, looked at the Model W siblings (who were just as baffled as they were), and then back at each other with a grim, knowing gaze. Then they turned to Omega, who was smiling in a rather sinister manner as he calmly blocked off the exit behind them.

"Omega…!"

"So, now that we're out here," he began, and gods damn it the ZX siblings knew that tone of voice, "it would seem that any and all worries about collateral damage are now moot! Those two are nearly done-in, and honestly? This fight is pretty unfair at the moment."

"Damn straight!" Prometheus snarled.

Omega continued, and the increasing dread in Vent and Aile's postures began to gather the attention of the other two Mega Men, "So basically, we've pretty much won our little brawl here already, right? I don't know about you, but for me? A fight with a foregone conclusion is no fun. Soooo…" His smirk could have made even a demon jealous. Confident, savage, and graceful all at once, Omega slowly drew his saber once more, "All of you, against little old me. How about it?"

Pandora blinked. She looked at Omega, "Are you serious-"

"He's serious," Vent and Aile said simultaneously, cocking their guns. Omega's grin widened.

Prometheus scowled, "Oh, you mother f-"

He never got to finish that sentence.

Bonus IV

"How thehell did we end up like this?"

Prometheus was sat on a nearby couch, head in his hands as he leaned forwards in abject misery. Pandora, nearby, was flopped down bonelessly on a bed in the medical bay. If you listened very, very hard, you could hear her groaning, the poor woman steeped in the same sort of indignant despair as her brother. The bright and cheery lights of the ward weren't helping matters.

Vent, Aile, and a nearby nurse all sighed. Aile grunted, "Trust me, we've been asking ourselves that question for the past few years."

"I know the answer!" Omega shouted from out in the hall, far too cheerily for someone who had just four-on-one'd some of the strongest people in the world (and dropped one of his weapons halfway through the fight for an extra challenge, because why the hell not I guess).

No one responded to him. Vent just joined Prometheus on the couch as they all sighed once more.