Alternate title: And now you know (but you're doing it again, anyways)/Proof that pink is Badass

AAAAAH, this blabbering was only supposed to be a few paragraphs, damnit! But I digress, trivia time! Rockman X Dive gave us some more info on Omega, and, uh… if it's canon? And the fandom wiki is correct? The 60% of humans and 90% of reploid killed during the Elf Wars were, pretty much, all by Omega's hand. What the shit is your kill count my dude?! Add to that the fact that the Sigma+Maverick wars happened because of Zero/Omega being woken up and passing on the virus, which helped lead to the racism and persecution against reploid in the Neo Arcadian times… Man, what a red legacy. No wonder his armour is blood coloured.

Speaking of colour… Ciel clearly set a standard that all the ZX villains looked up to. They all have pink on them somewhere. Ciel is pretty epic though, so who can blame them?

Bonus VIII

"So like," Ashe began, "Weren't you and Aile supposed to be the leaders? Why do you Guardian guys have so many commanders anyways?"

Afternoon light filtered in through dusty windows as Vent shrugged, finishing off a sip of milkshake as the group sat in a diner after their battle, "We all cover different fields. Aile and I are sort of the main two in control, field commanders for the most part. We're the bosses when it comes to getting missions done, as well as outreach to other organizations. Prairie covers general operations, supplies, the day to day boring junk as you'd call it. We've also got Ciel, who runs both the science and medical departments. If push comes to shove it's usually Prairie calling the shots, but if you ask her, she'll say it's us in command." The faux leather he was sat on creaked as he shifted.

Aile scoffed, "She'll say it's us and she's just giving us advice, we'll say it's her and we're just running intermediary, and Ciel probably just points to all three of us and goes take your pick." Then she got up, heading to the counter for some napkins.

"Doesn't it get confusing sometimes? Having that many people tryna' talk over each other?" Ashe tilted her head curiously. When Aile returned to the table, the grey haired girl took a napkin from her, reached over in front of a moderately indignant looking Omega, and shoved it onto Grey's face. Due to his rather haphazard attempts at eating a hotdog with way too many toppings, it stuck. The youth blinked, used the napkin to wipe off some of the mess, and reached for the ketchup.

Aile shrugged dismissively, "Nah. We're pretty in tune with each other."

"Everyone in the organization has a pretty good idea of how everyone else functions. We're a small group for a reason. When you're this tight-knit, and when everyone has their own roles, it's not hard for us to stay organized," Vent explained. After grabbing a napkin from Aile as well, he glanced across the table with an eyebrow raised. The brunette smirked when he noticed a blob of mustard on Omega's ripped-up shirt. With all the dust and damage afflicting the poor piece of fabric, it's not like one more stain was going to make any difference.

Omega had also noticed the blob, a consequence of being beside a growing boy eating way too much in one sitting. He promptly ignored it, "It also helps that we're all pretty well trained. The few times communication gets completely cut, everyone's competent enough to secure the immediate area and figure things out from there."

Aile rolled her eyes, "The combat scenarios you keep dragging us all into certainly help with that."

Vent scoffed, "You and your training, ugh."

"So sue me! I get bored!"

"So that's what he's for? He's the training boss?" Grey squeaked as he interrupted, rather cutely they all had to admit, before looking over at the blonde beside him.

"Nope," Omega surveyed the small teen, paused for a moment, then grinned, "I'm the panic button."

Ashe stared. Grey blinked. The old-model reploid behind the counter, who hadn't even bothered to hide his eavesdropping, choked. There was a pause.

"...I can see why," Ashe replied sagely. She idly lifted her arm, tapping gently on one of the bruises she'd accrued in their earlier fight, "Sure made me panic a few times I'll tell you!" The teen grumbled and dropped her elbows onto the table, leaning on them as she sighed, "Geeze. Getting my ass beat so badly by a guy in civvies. Who'd've thunk it. Narrowest win we've ever had, and we've had a few tooth-skinners for sure."

"Tooth-skinners?"

Ashe ruffled Grey's hair, "By the skin of our teeth. It's an expression for having a close call."

"Ah. Tooth-skinners."

Omega leaned back with a chortle, "Yeah, you two are fun fighters for sure. Next time I'll have to bring my gun and armour. A light scuffle like that just doesn't cut it, y'know?"

"Bring your what?"

"A light scuffle. A light scuffle. Are you serious?" Ashe coughed as some soda went down the wrong way, utterly aghast, "You call that a light scuffle!? We blew up a billboard, put craters in the road, knocked down a wall-"

"That I threw you through-"

"-That Grey threw you through as a giant crocodile robot, not to mention making a flaming-arrow pincushion out of a door that you ripped out of its frame to guard yourself with…. And that's just a light scuffle to you!?" Ashe snapped, her eyes wide as she half-stood to glare at him.

Omega snorted, "Well yeah, I didn't even use my giga attacks or healing-"

"You've got healing!? What!?" Ashe squawked.

Vent put his drink down firmly, the clunk of glass cutting though the conversation, "Omega, go easy on them. They're new to dealing with someone like you."

"Of course they are. I'm one of a kind!"

Thank heavens for that, Vent thought as he turned to the Model A siblings, both of who were looking a little horrified at the prospects, "Look, don't worry about it. If it makes you feel any better, our track record with him isn't much better than yours. He's scary to deal with, sure, but as a little secret between us? While it's true that he's got a lot more he can throw at you, he's got to pause a moment while doing it."

Omega pouted, "No fair. Quit telling them all my weaknesses."

Aile leaned over to poke him, "We're just making it harder on you because you like fights being harder on you. Hence why you're always dropping a weapon or taking on a single element halfway through whatever play-brawl we're having. But yeah, Grey, Ashe, while there's no doubt that this big lug's got an utterly terrifying arsenal, truth is, he can't drop a laser rain or beam attack on you without taking a moment to actually set it off. Use these moments to get your distance and pelt him with shots. With any luck you can interrupt him right when he's building up to an attack and stun him for a half-second."

Omega muttered dourly, "The moment I figure out how to get over the damn flinching-!"

"Long distance is your best bet. Sometimes one of us will go Model X only, to focus on ranged fire, while the other one distracts him," Vent advised, "because as you probably figured out, close range attacks are pretty much suicidal against him."

"Yeah. I think we got that," Ashe grunted. She winced when she accidentally pulled one of her ribs the wrong way.

"Tell that to Prometheus. That guy will not get out of my face," Omega huffed.

Vent and Aile stiffened while Ashe and Grey stopped dead, their eyes wild as they looked at the blonde swordsman. The entire diner had gone quiet, though that might have been because they were the only group within it. Grey, clearly shell-shocked, managed to stutter out, "Did. Did you just say what I think you did?"

"Omega," Aile growled, "we are going to have to talk about what things need to stay confidential."

Omega didn't back down, returning the glare she was giving him, "If there's things I need to keep quiet, then maybe we should."

"He's right," Vent admitted, "there's no way he could have known." The older Mega Man turned to look at the young siblings sitting across from him, and sighed as he prepared to talk, "I think there's some explanations due."

Ashe growled, "No duh! Start talkin'!" Her arms crossed as she waited for the answer.

A few minutes into what quickly became a very long and sensitive conversation, the restaurant owner trotted over to the door and flipped the sign to 'closed'. He walked around, covering up a few windows as Vent and Aile explained about Pandora and Prometheus and how the two had tried to ambush them and instead been taken under the Guardian's wings somehow. However, the Model A Mega Mens' curiosity didn't stop once this had been revealed. They started to ask about Omega, how they'd all met, why he was so strong, and so on and so forth. It wasn't long until the Maverick wars and Elf Wars somehow got brought up. That's when Model A, who had been snoozing in Ashe's pocket, finally woke up and demanded a recap. So they explained it all again. Mentions of an old shapeshifter called Axl caused a few conspiracies. Omega ended up on quite the tirade soon after, opening more than a few eyes at just how horrific things had been during all of these events and shocking people with just how many people had died during the Elf Wars. Everyone else in the room looked a little sick once he explained the numbers, moreso when Omega got dodgy after Vent tried to press him on how exactly they'd all been killed. Not even Vent or Aile had known that much about Omega or all the battles he'd stubbornly survived through. Not until he'd revealed it all to them there at the table. Ashe gulped more than a few times, having come to the realization that her career of treasure hunting and spelunking through ruins was really just cleaning up the pieces left over after a series of world-wide slaughters and genocides, despite it being centuries since they'd officially ended. Most of which had been caused by Omega simply existing.

Soon enough, Prairie and Ciel were called up and put on speaker when, somehow, the Neo Arcadian wars and the origin of biometals got brought up as well. The reploid running the place contributed a thing or two every now and then, having been there at the time. ("Just how many people around here are flaunting the reploid age limits, anyways?" Ashe screeched.) Halfway through that little side-track, they all had to pause when a crash and a yelp of, "Muguet, no, not the-!" crackled through the speakers from Ciel's side of the discussion.

Discussions of Weil and the origins of Model W caused disgust among many of those at the table. Omega scowled knowingly when he heard of Weil's fate, of how the man had become the infamous Model W. "Hmph. Figures he'd manage something like that." Zero's exact fate was left to the imagination; Ciel had gone quiet at the mention of it, the tragedy still a burden upon her, and the group respectfully waited as she recovered herself. It was nearing night-time when the conversation finally rolled back to talking about the former Model W Mega Men. How they were doing, how the timer issue and Model W influences had been handled, and so on. "Who are they to you, anyways?" Omega inquired curiously as they were all winding down. Vent quietly thanked the other commanders as he hung up on them in the background.

Grey spoke up, "Uhm… Albert was technically our, uh, father? Creator? He made both Pandora and Prometheus, and also me. Ashe considers me her little brother, so... So I guess those two are technically our siblings? I'd like to meet them, uh, when we're not trying to kill each other." Omega looked over at the kid, speculatively gazing down at Grey with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"No. You are not corrupting him too!" Aile interjecting, all-too-familiar with the devil reploid's expression. The man backed down.

Grey's eyes grew wide with a puppy-dog pout wicked enough to make a cactus cry, "Why not? He managed to get your other biometals back. I wanna be cool and sneaky like that!" Omega beamed at the praise. Grey, chipper as ever, looked around at the occupants of the table, "I mean, I couldn't figure out why the other Mega Men were using modified biometal mock-ups! But now I know, and it's hilarious!"

"It's not sneaky, it is a bullshit level of luck, and I have lost track of the number of times we've had to-!"

Ashe scoffed, talking over Vent as she changed the topic, "So Thomas is actually behind a lot of these recent things, huh? I guess that's why he made such a fuss to the public about a lab getting broken into. Should have known a bounty that massive was kinda shady. He wanted the culprit silenced so that he could cover up how he had your biometals all along! I can't believe we've been working for the guy…" She leaned back languidly, "Didn't you guys even go on TV just to say something like, ooh yeah, what a bad thing that's been done, someone stealing government property! We'll do everything within our power to find the culprits!" Ashe taunted, mockingly imitating Vent's voice as she paraphrased him. "He didn't even know the break-ins were your fault, and you said that to his face! That's freakin' hilarious."

"To be fair, we did do everything in our power to find the culprits. We just didn't tell anyone," Aile giggled cheekily. "It's also why we can't use our ZX form in public anymore. It'd reveal that we got him back, which would connect us to the theft, etcetera. Still. We might not be able to confront Thomas directly, politics and all," she began, "but you can bet that if anyone tries to start messing around with things on our watch, we're going to everything in our power to stop it. Or at the very least, make it as excruciating and annoying as possible."

Vent thumped his fist onto the table, "If they so much as think of trying anything, we'll be there to mess them up."

"Big time," Omega sneered. "If Thomas wants to dive into the deep end with all the other big fish, he'd better be ready to fight a few sharks." He smiled wide, his teeth uncomfortably sharp.

"Pfft. More like a kraken," Aile giggled under her breath.

"Gosh," Ashe huffed and tried to peek out a window, her gaze not getting much farther than the curtain covering it, "I had no idea you Guardians were so neck-deep in it. Everyone thinks you guys just occasionally show up and help here and there with minor maverick attacks and stuff. It's the Hunters that get all the credit for being badasses."

Vent raised his hands placatingly, "Hey. Hunters are pretty bad ass. We just help 'em out from the shadows a little bit here and there."

The light of street lamps trickled in between thick fabric sheets, the ratty cloth in front of the windows swaying gently as an air conditioner whirred noisily from the other side of the room. Nick, the owner, quietly wiped at a glass he'd already cleaned long ago, the object polished to a shine in his introspective grip. The smell of grease and condiments permeated the atmosphere. Crickets chirped relentlessly outside in the dusty, late evening glow, muted voices and the sound of an occasional vehicle blending together. His third milkshake for the day finished, Vent peeked at the clock. "Probably a good time to call it. Poor Nick's been tolerating us nuisances long enough," he chortled, looking up at the Reploid at the counter.

"Patient as a saint," Nick joked, adjusting his visor. As the gentle laughter died down, the older reploid hummed thoughtfully, "Don't you guys worry about it. Honestly, this was… good for me too. Being a civilian when all that went down, when governments weren't telling you anything and scary things were happening, and everything could, and usually did, go to hell in a handbasket at a moment's notice? Wide-scale mind control? Cities disappearing in an instant? I lived a long time without any answers. Lost a lot of good people, back then, most of whom I barely even knew. Every time you tried to ask someone 'why', you'd realize that they didn't know either, that we were all asking the same thing. Everyone was screaming it, why, why, why, and those that weren't looked like they wished they hadn't known the answer." He shook his head, light reflecting off his eyepiece, "You're correct though. It's pretty late. Jim's gotta be wondering what the heck's going on. You guys go ahead, there's just one or two things left for me to clean up here." He gave the cameras in the room a sly glance.

"Thanks a bunch. We appreciate the cover," Aile said, motioning towards the windows and door. Nick just smiled and nodded, then unlocked the front exit to let everyone out. He saluted the Guardian leaders as they left, even managing to give Omega a meaningful gaze as the blonde passed by. The maverick returned it for a moment. Then he returned to his business like it was just any other day, strolling past everyone as if they were little more than a stray breeze that had crossed his path. Vent and Aile waved at Grey and Ashe as their groups parted. Even Omega turned for a second and inclined his head at the two Model A users, probably in acknowledgement of their earlier battle prowess. The three Guardians left quietly, drawing little attention to themselves. Grey and Ashe went the other way, following their example.

Later down the road, when the Guardian pair and their tag-along were long gone, Ashe grunted. "I can't believe it. All along, the Guardians knew about a monster like that, had even recruited him! Geeze. I feel kinda dumb for being so full of myself earlier," Ashe whined, swinging her arms back and forth. Grey squirmed, nodding at her as he grabbed one of the cables on his back and brought it forwards to fiddle with it. Both of them shared an extended moment of embarrassment. Then Ashe's eyes narrowed with determination, "You know what, Grey? We're slacking. Today's mess was on us! There's no way I'm gonna let some red-eyed old coot beat us up and get away with it. Tomorrow! Starting tomorrow, we're gonna train! We're gonna whup his ass! Tomorrow!"

"Yeah! Tomorrow!"

"Whooo!" The two pumped their arms in the air energetically, roaring at each other with gusto. Then they both winced and keeled over, clutching at the various bumps and bruises that they'd forgotten over the course of the day. Grey whimpered a little, eyes watering up from a particularly nasty slash on his hip, as Ashe lifted one of her legs off the ground slightly. The two looked at each other wordlessly as their eyes met.

"...Maybe not tomorrow," Ashe finally relented. "Day after tomorrow?"

"Day after tomorrow. Whoo."

"Whoo."

The pact was made.

Bonus IX

Vent paused as the events of last night replayed in his head. He looked around the bridge, currently a little packed after the tail end of a meeting between commanders, as a realization slowly but inexorably came to his awareness.

"There are four Guardian commanders. Yet I'm the only guy among us," he stated bluntly.

Aile, who had decided her colour scheme for the day was reddish hair with a short yellow jacket, blinked owlishly, "You know… I never really realized that. That's a good point." She kicked her feet from where she sat on the captain's chair, the rest of her body sunk into its plush surface.

Vent nodded wisely, "See? It's totally unbalanced! Too much super awesome girl power in one room." He pointed down to his current outfit, "So as you can see, it's all because of you ladies that I'm wearing this."

"It's not my fault you decided to steal my coat. My bright pink, ankle-length coat that I am extremely fond of," Prairie growled.

Ciel, stood nearby, nearly spat out her tea as she looked at her protege in offense, "Your coat? You stole that from me!"

"And I stole it from her. The circle of life continues," Vent said sagely.

Aile scoffed as she appraised her brother, "Well. It is an awesome coat."

"It's pink! I only ever knew one other guy who liked pink that much!" Ciel blustered. Then she paused, "Well. Pink clothes. I guess there's a few more if we count swords."

"Serpent's stupid tie-thing."

"Oh right. Make that two."

"Albert's hair and annoying shields?"

"Er…"

"Four Guardian commanders, and only one of them is a guy. No wonder I'm wearing a pink coat. Huh," Vent mused again, ignoring the banter as he sipped at his coffee.

"You can give it back any time now," Prairie grumbled.

Vent ignored her.