Covered in dust and debris, his auditory sensors ringing from the blast, Omega dragged himself from the surrounding rubble. Fallen trees and bushes had both sheltered him from the blast, and scratched him as they splintered from the explosion. Deep gouges wracked his form. He ignored the pain and bleeding, desperately searching through the wreckage caused by the space cannon for his allies and masters. Smoke clogged the air.

"Pandora? Prometheus! Answer!"

He tried to listen out for the siblings, but all he could hear was the ringing of his auditory sensors. He really hoped they weren't dead. As much as Omega didn't like being forced to obey someone, if they ended up dead Weil's programming would force him to start destroying everything. Not that he couldn't, but it would be a monumental task he really didn't want to be bothered with right now. All signs pointed to Thomas pretty much doing the work for him at this point, anyways.

He heard coughing from under some nearby rubble. Omega quickly went to lift it up, but was met with the rather surprised visage of the flame Mega Man Atlas instead. Any reaction she might have had was quashed when Omega simply dropped the slab of concrete back down. (Come to think of it, that looked like the wall from the city? That was quite a flight distance). He had better things to do right now than deal with some second rate replicas.

Another piece of rubble moved elsewhere. Within short order a chunk of someone's roof went flying. Pandora appeared from beneath, covered in dust and looking rather peeved from the whole ordeal. She pouted, beckoning Omega to her. He obeyed. Pandora hummed, her ire somewhat mollified by his response. Omega got the distinct impression she was rather pleased by having such a loyal servant, but he didn't have time to get begrudging about it.

"Your brother. Do you think he's nearby?"

Pandora nodded, but a shifting of wreckage nearby cut off any need to respond. Prometheus scrambled out, a bit worse for wear, but nonetheless spitting dust and fury. "Blasted Thomas! I can't believe the idiot would do such a thing when his own Mega Men were nearby!"

As he pulled himself upright, another person managed to scramble out of being buried. Aeolus had no warning when Pandora attacked, interrupting his attempts to recover by smashing him brutally over the head with her staff. The crack was very audible.

"Thomas... cares as much for his servants... as Albert did," Pandora summarized, watching Aeolus' prone form slump to the ground.

"Thank heavens the idiot has such bad aim. Hey! Omega! New plan. We get to Area... er, we get to the safe zone sooner rather than later. Either we spooked Thomas something hardcore when we beat the snot out of his Mega Men, or he's gotten confident and thinks he can get to that moon base early enough that he doesn't need to care about the fallout."

"Even if that was a desperation, or just a test shot, retreat is our best option right now," Omega agreed. As much as the God of Destruction would have liked to confirm his kills on the elemental Mega Men, the potential of leaving them alive was a lot less dangerous than the potential of getting hit by a second space cannon blast.

Despite being wounded, the trio made haste. They sped away from the blast site and managed to keep pace at full speed for a week, occasionally hijacking a public transporter to reach their destination as needed. The teleporter circuits around the Area C city were down, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why. Occasionally the blast of a space cannon could be seen in the distance, or fleeing civilians told of whole areas wiped in an instant. The world was surely ending. Slowly. Thomas wasn't firing at full power yet. But because of the space cannon blasts, few people batted an eye at the passing of the trio, more concerned with finding safety themselves than chasing the shadows of a few mavericks.

The Guardians made no effort to contact them. They returned the favor. After all, priorities had shifted.

The trio made great time, often running through wilderness areas without stopping for days on end. The unnatural stamina of Mega Men was something to be feared, but an original reploid like Omega could make even that seem paltry. Before long the large trees of Area A were within sight.

Omega faltered. It had taken centuries of waiting in that underground cavern to get where he was today. Going back was... not an option he particularly liked. But programming, and common sense, gave him little other choice. Waiting around wasn't his style, but neither was dying like a mook. Self imprisonment it was for him, yet again. Pandora and Prometheus commanding him into it only sealed the deal.

Sometimes, pre-programmed loyalty sucked.

After a short labyrinth of doors, spike pits, and whatever else Area M and N decided to throw at them, Omega turned around and sealed the door to the underground caverns for good. Pandora froze the door, and Prometheus collapsed some rubble around it for good measure. A moment passed in silence. The outside was no longer accessible. If that door was ever to open again, the world beyond would never be the same as the one they'd left behind. It was just them, and Area N. Prometheus sighed, sitting down on a nearby stone. "So. Any guesses who'll win?"

Pandora hummed, letting herself finally relax. "In the end... I suppose it doesn't matter..."

"We may be safe, but we also have limited supplies," Omega stated. "Before we settle, we should survey what is available to us. I can survive on the energy crystals within here for... quite some time, but I am unfamiliar with what you two will require."

"Guess that's true. Very well. Let's see what we've got."

The group went to work. Because of the distorted nature of Area N, and Omega's previous long-term presence here, energy crystals were abundant. As reploids, they'd be able to function for a very long time, if necessary. But as far as repairs and whatnot were concerned, raw materials were far scarcer. Only the scattered bodies of a few mechaniloids they found and killed were present. Even the toughest of reploids needed metal and mineral supplements from time to time when actively running. And yet, that might not have been as much of an issue as first thought. Omega concentrated. The realm spluttered.

While Pandora and Prometheus were worried about this for the first moment, Omega simply smiled. "This area has cyberspace-like properties. We might be able to create anything we need from data. Sort of like manipulating data for a teleporter circuit. Only we don't need data from an original object to get a product."

"Handy as heck. So. Got any designs for things we'd need?"

Omega frowned. "Perhaps, hmm. A few hibernation machines. Sleep will be important. We are not in need of much else down here, and yet, there may be something we have in excess. Time. Waiting for the space cannons to finish firing... I'd recommend waiting a hundred years."

"Wait. WHAT!?"

"That... is a long time."

The sibling's mild shock was amusing to Omega. "Time is on our side. A hundred years is a long time for even an immortal man like Thomas to keep up his assault, should he have won. And if not, we need simply outlive the survivors who know how to deal with our threat. One hundred years is, in fact, just about the right time frame."

"Very well. We... shall wait."

And so they would. The group set to clearing space for the hibernation machines, the memory and data for which Omega was intimately familiar with. Weil had spent a lot of time studying the lab where Zero had been sealed after the elf wars, once he'd gotten his hands on it. Omega couldn't really blame him.

Halfway through construction (for such machines would hold their lives in their hands, and everything had to be carefully calibrated and tested), Pandora found a slight problem. Water was beginning to pool around the entrance to Area N. They initially thought it to merely be the defrosting of Pandora's barrier on the door, but then one day it began to drip too much, and taste just a little too salty. The area was properly blocked off, waterproofed, and structured so that if the water continued to come in, the air pressure from the caverns would stop any further incursions.

So then, they slept. For 100 years, on the dot.

And when they awoke, the water was everywhere.

It had begun leaking past their barriers, salty and musty. The air pressure in the room was heavy, too heavy, and the trio realized there must have been great pressure outside the doors. Therefore, with proper re-building of the dam to ensure Area N was dry, the made a small excursion outside.

Or at least, they tried.

The water pressure was deep, deep enough to block out most light. Dead tree trunks met their sight, and climbing a few of the still-standing trees led the group to a startling sight.

Water. Everywhere.

Area A was no more. Instead was a shallow sea, and by shallow, it was almost 30 meters deep. If they were not reploids, the water could easily have begun to crush them. A decision had to be made.

Prometheus was boggled. "Do we continue to wait? Or do we see what survived? I kinda don't know how to react to this."

"A scouting mission would be advisable. Then we could be sure of our decision, if nothing else," Omega offered.

"Agreed."

Without much else to go on, the group tried to see what lay around them. But Area A had certainly not been at low elevation even before the flooding, and after a few days of flogging through deep water and nearly getting separated several times, the group decided that they couldn't risk getting lost for good. They only really had each other as far as Pandora and Prometheus were concerned. Even Omega wasn't fond of the idea of losing his way, or his charges. Not knowing whether or not they were alive would have bothered his programming immensely.

The group reconvened within the safety of Area N. It was only then that they noticed the crystalline structures had thickened around them, forming a protective cone above them. Omega narrowed his eyes when he noticed a pattern.

"Odd. The crystals are forming a point aiming towards the surface. If we leave things the way they are for a while, they might eventually form an island of sorts. We could see the world a bit better from above the waves."

"How long do you think that'd take?" Prometheus asked.

"Honestly?" Omega replied, "I haven't a clue. To be frank, I feel returning to hibernation is our best option. One day, these crystals might reach the surface. But to stay awake and wait... would be rather boring."

"We do have to... practice our teamwork... at some point. Our last fight showed that we are too... unfamiliar... with each other's battle styles."

Omega grinned, because Pandora had just unwittingly given him permission to beat the shit out of the pair of them. But he offered an olive branch before they clued in, "I recommend we sleep in intervals, train for a while when waking, and check on the progress of the island afterwards. We could also work on trying to reach the Ragnarok program, if it's still active. If Thomas has died, who knows. You might be the next best thing to activating it because of Weil's DNA inside your Model Ws, as it was an access code for the Ragnarok program."

"Good idea I guess." Prometheus yawned. He grinned, "I guess if we could activate that old system, the Ragnarok code... could we be the next end of the world?"

"For now... it matters not," Pandora said, "for now... we sleep."

And so they did.

It was not centuries that passed, but millenia. Time crawled forth, and the three reploids slept below. Slept, trained, and prepared. The world forgot they were there. About the beings with the power to bring ruin to everything. And they soon forgot about the world. They became disillusioned with existence outside of Area N and spared little thought about anything but each other, or perhaps, simply weren't bothered.. They trained, they rested, and they contemplated little of anyone or anything else.

Their crystal home broke the surface of the ocean. And they didn't care. One look at the endless waters of the surface, and they laughed at how the world had ended. At how they had survived. They shunned those endless waters, and instead built a labyrinth of jewel and evil within their crystal island, a maze of energy and distorted reality, and slept deep below the surface.

But the world would wake them, one day. One sorry, sordid day of ruin.

The room they slumbered in was pitch black as they slept. As it had been for millenia before, all was silent. But then, a crack of light. The opening of a door.

"It's almost open, miss Tron!" squeaked a voice. The next moment, a crash. The door had gone flying. A small blue and yellow robot entered the room, forlornly watched the metal clatter to the ground.

"Aww. And I just spent so much time trying to open it without damaging it!" Came another squeak, slightly deeper. Several more little robots came in, all looking the same. Some swung their arms while others looked around with large, cute eyes, surveying the darkness fruitlessly.

The heavy thud of a mech echoed around the room, and soon a large machine with a skull insignia on its front smashed through the ruined doorframe. Tron Bonne, explorer, inventor, and pirate extraordinaire stomped her machine into the dark room, frowning. She surveyed the area, then growled.

"This is it? We spent all this time getting into Ginnungagap, the legendary crystal isle... for a dark room? Talk about anticlimactic! And I thought that dungeon out there meant that this place would be hiding some good treasure!" A brown-haired teen popped open the roof of the cockpit, angrily flinging out an empty can of pop. It clattered to the ground, rolling into the shadows. "After I spent all that money on that stupid map, and that stupid guy swearing rumours of some mother lode... huh. What a ripoff." the piratess pouted, folding her arms stubbornly.

The can crunched. Whatever the little yellow robots had been doing to pass the time came to an abrupt halt. "M-m-m-miss Tron, was that you...?"

Tron Bonne did not answer. Instead she plopped back down into the cockpit of her mech, taking a battle stance. The robots, her servbots, immediately ran to her side, sensing a fight. They were not disappointed.

Prometheus had been the first to wake. And wasn't he a sight. First his eyes appeared, glowing red with evil as he emerged from the gloom, his features barely visible due to the darkness. The skull imagery on his forehead, and the sudden activation of his energy scythe, sent the servbots quailing with fear.

"Oh... look here... Look at the fools that disturbed our eternal slumber..."

Two more sets of eyes began to glow red. Pandora''s staff whirled, glowing at the tip. Her features were shadowed, her eyes as dead and cruel as the rest of her. "What fools... to wake us... to disturb this tomb..."

"Long ago, the world was vibrant. And long ago, we were born."

The final enemy had appeared. Omega stepped forth from the darkness, his eyes and forehead jewel glowing the fiercest. He truly looked the image of a demon, framed on either side by the witch and the grim reaper.

"Long ago, the world ended. And we did not."

"The world above should have stayed dead," cackled Prometheus. "But if it didn't... we can always arrange something!"

Tron Bonne should, by all intents and purposes, have been utterly petrified were she any normal girl. But she wasn't. She steeled her nerve, fingering the controls of her mech, the Gustaff. Tron had her own share of battles under her belt. "Well. Not what I was expecting! But fine! I'll beat up the lot of you, and sell your parts for scrap!"

All she got in response was laughing.

"Ware wa messia Nari! Ah ha ha ha ha!"

And so, the battle began.

Bonus

"How did we end up like this again?"

Omega's query was valid indeed. The trio of mavericks were shoved into some sort of small airship that didn't have the room for even one of them. Much less all three.

"It was going to be fun," Prometheus said. "Crashing a fighting tournament. Money! Some sort of idea about how this blasted world works despite being completely underwater. Get to the moon base so we could get access to the Ragnarok system. Good stuff right?" He grumbled, shifting. It really was a wonder how they were all in there.

"Tron said we... could fight some spiky haired boy of some sort... A strong foe. And reach the stars... with her..." Pandora added.

"Right. Can't destroy the world if you get stuck in the crossfire from your own space cannons. We can't restart Ragnarok with us down here," her brother agreed.

"We allied with a teenager. A Teenager. With little cutesy yellow robot servants. For this."

Outside the cockpit, some sort of announcer was hollering an intro. "Oh look! The Bonnes are at it again. Evil Pirates! Bet they're trying to steal the prize money and interrupt our tournament! But they let us know who they were sending this time, at least." A pause, then, "Ugh, whatever! Introducing, Servbots 42, 43, and... 44!? What? They're sending out servbots again!? Oh good lord. They're not paying me enough for this."

"Barrett! Just beat those little yellow losers up and get this over with, so we can get the money for a space ship!" Someone else yelled. Judging by the cacophony of laughter outside their small airship, it had been an audience member. And the rest of the audience was laughing. Laughing at the small airship, and those within.

Omega, ancient God of Destruction that he was, did not appreciate being mocked. He suddenly got the look on his features. Omega growled, twisted, and his hands began glowing. Prometheus frowned. "I don't like it when you make that face."

"I am making that face."

"Wait. He's... making the face?"

"Yeah, Pandora, he is."

"Tron's going to... be mad... if we blow up another airship of hers."

"Brace yourselves." Omega's hand suddenly stopped glowing.

"I hate it when you say that."

The airship blasted apart. Debris rattled across the tournament grounds. The skull face plate from the front of the Bonne ship comically came to rest at the feet of their challenger, but the blast had created enough smoke to obscure the features of everyone on the white-tiled battlefield. No one could see the features of the three figures dropping from the explosion, just their shadows.

"Oh my! Looks like those servbots couldn't even pilot a ship right!" giggled the announcer. The audience laughed again, amused at the thought of three small servbots who couldn't even fly an aircraft without blowing it up.. But then, someone spoke up.

"Barrett. Something's off. I'm sensing traces of the old system!" At those words from an unknown source in the audience, everyone went quiet. From lack of knowledge, or from foreboding, who knew. Then, three sets of eyes glowed red in the smoke.

"Been a while since I killed anyone. I wonder if I've gotten rusty," Prometheus began. He said it neutrally, but the grin on his face was reflected in his voice. His scythe twirled through the air, taunting. The zephyrs of light glowed ominously from the dissipating smoke.

Pandora cracked her shoulders, floating from the smokescreen with her staff floating alongside her. "Hmm... Old system... do you think that is...?"

"Probably is. But who cares! Come on announcer! Do your job!" Prometheus moved his hands, and the smoke was swept from the fight. Across from them stood a younger male, spiky brown hair and goggles on his face. But the boy wasn't the newcomer to the tournament; Thus, he wasn't the one on which all eyes laid. Now sporting the signature symbol of the Bonnes on their chests, the two evil Mega Men and their servant faced their foe. More airships dropped from the sky, heading towards one of the buildings. As planned, the other ships were there to steal the tournament prize money now that all the fighters were tired or occupied.

Omega lifted himself from where he'd landed, slowly and with purpose. Pandora, nearby, smiled down at him before turning to their foe. "42. 43. 44. We are allied... with the Bonnes. But don't take us... for normal servbots."

"We're here to kill some time with you! Or maybe just kill you. Doesn't that sound like fun?" Prometheus laughed. He pointed his scythe towards the boy, who just laughed and prepared to fight, unscathed by the appearance of unknown enemies. He was cocky. It would be his undoing.

Omega caught the eyes of something in the audience. Or rather, something. A monkey stared back at him, but the eyes were too intelligent for some random mechaniloid. Too emotional.

After all, mechaniloids couldn't show fear.

"Let us bring this all to an end, once more." Omega stated. He drew his sword, pointing it at the challenger facing them. Pandora and Prometheus also took battle stances. Prometheus gave a Cheshire grin, and Pandora's eyes were as cold as always.

"Yes. Let's bring everything to its glorious end!"