Part 33: THUNDER TORNADO

Even after the bright light disappeared, it was quite some time before Aile could manage to open her eyes and look around without them watering, and even then her vision was blurry. She couldn't hear anything at first and briefly feared she'd gone deaf, but then everything started ringing - which hurt, but was probably a good sign overall.

She was aware that she was falling, but only after she noticed that she'd stopped. Then she went flying sideways, then back again, then she felt her body whipping around in all sorts of directions, none of which she was telling it to do. It was like a baby had grabbed hold of her feet and was waving her around like a rattle, and she had no idea why.

Well, that wasn't true. As she became slightly more aware, she noticed that her body seemed to be avoiding a series of large, blurry objects as they fell past her. She was also apparently not on solid ground. She was, in fact hovering. What the hell is going on?

Aile! Glad to have you back.

Leviathan? What do you- It all came back to her in a rush, and she shook her head to clear the last of the fogginess clouding her thoughts. Ugh...I must have hit my head or something. Having trouble thinking straight.

Well, you didn't hit your head, specifically. But you were at ground zero of a plasma explosion strong enough to vaporize eighty percent of a battleship and live to tell about it, so personally I think you should consider yourself lucky to only be feeling a little dazed and confused.

I also can't hear anything, and everything is blurry...are you dodging ship debris for me?

Yes, one of the shockwaves knocked you out, so I took over. I'm trying to fix your eyes and ears, they should get better in a few moments. Just hold on.

All right. Anything else broken?

We're in pretty bad shape, but considering what we just went through, it could have been worse. I drained most of my energy shielding you from the blast and it still managed to wreck our armor pretty bad; you'll see it yourself soon enough. If we had the option I'd suggest a tactical retreat so I could recharge and we'd be fine in fifteen minutes or so, but...

What? She could sense the uneasiness coming from her biometal. Our goal was to blow up the ship, and it's gone now, and Aeolus with it. Why can't we-

Aeolus didn't go down with the ship.

What?! Aile was shocked. Aeolus had been significantly more damaged than her, and had been right at the root of the explosion. On top of that, Model H didn't have half the defensive power that Model L did, and while they had also created a Biomerge, theirs wasn't nearly as strong as the one Aile and Leviathan had. It didn't make any sense that not only did Aeolus not die in the explosion, he was giving Leviathan pause. How did he survive?

I...don't know. Judging by the amount of power I'm picking up, he seems to have gone into Overdrive, so I assume that has something to do with it. Honestly Aile, everything about Biomerges is pretty unexplored territory, so your guess is as good as mine.

Well, if you don't think he's going to let us go, I guess we could just go ask.

Anything you can do to stall him and give me time to recharge. At this point, bluffing is probably the way to go. If he's in Overdrive and has a decent amount of strength left, I'm afraid he could probably make quick work of us. Be careful, Aile.

As her vision and hearing returned to normal, Aile felt Leviathan surrender control of her body back to her again. It was a seamless transition, and it felt good to know they were starting to get used to working together like that. It was like passing off the baton in a relay race...though it was a little weird to think of her body as the baton.

There were no more pieces of ship debris to be dodged, but Aile could still hear the remains crashing down onto the ground below, crushing buildings and city streets beneath them as they landed. The blast itself had already levelled the closest structures, but some of the pieces of the ship had been blown quite a ways into the distance. She hoped there hadn't been any Guardian forces nearby. The plan had been to have them all move into Legion Tower and hole up there while Zero dealt with Thomas, but pretty much nothing had gone according to plan so far, so who knew how well that had turned out.

Hovering in the air was a new thing. She wondered how far she could push it. Could she actually fly, or was she just barely staying up? She'd barely had time to think it before the response came through the biolink, directly into her mind – that was going to take some getting used to. Apparently if she reduced the amount of armor she wore the dash thrusters on her legs could put out enough power to hover and give her very limited manoeuvrability, but nothing terribly impressive – it would be mostly useful as a travel method and to prevent falling to her death, not as a battle tactic. They were meant to push her through water, not air, after all.

Any particular reason we weren't flying around before this? Aile asked pointedly.

We're both learning as we go, all right? Leviathan replied grumpily. You were falling to your death, I improvised. Innovation is born of desperation

Aile decided now wasn't the time to give her biometal a hard time as her eyes finally came back into focus, and she could finally see Aeolus floating in the air a short distance away. Even though he looked physically identical, something about him immediately struck her as different from only minutes ago.

It's the eyes, Leviathan replied, hearing her thoughts, and Aile immediately knew she was right. Aeolus's red eyes were always hard, angry, with a slightly haughty expression, like he knew he was better than you and was just waiting for a excuse to prove it. Now they were a bright emerald green, matching his armor, and almost completely devoid of expression at all. They simply stared back at her as he hovered silently in the air, his twin blades at his sides, humming with power.

What happened? Aile asked. Do you think he...?

I don't think Aeolus did anything, Leviathan replied. I think Model H...I think Harpuia took over. Aile, this just got a lot more dangerous. You might want to let me do the talking.

Well he's just floating there for now. Let's see what he's waiting for before we start assuming anything. Maybe he's ready to give up?

Harpuia would rather die than give up...which is what worries me the most.

"I see you managed to survive the blast," Harpuia yelled, having realized that Aile had noticed him.

"I'm more surprised that you did," she replied, trying to keep the tension from her voice.

A small smirk drew across his face, barely noticeable from such a distance. "These Biomerges are...interesting. Especially when combined with the power of an Overdrive. The rules of physics – and indeed, even reality itself – start to become...optional."

"Harpuia, that's too dangerous!" Leviathan yelled out. "Human minds weren't made to handle that much data! You don't know what entering Overdrive could be doing to Aeolus's mind!'

"I know he'd be willing to do it!" Harpuia yelled back. "I know he'd be willing to sacrifice anything to achieve victory, including himself!" His fists clenched around the handles of his blades. "We both knew what it meant."

"Why, Harpuia?!" Leviathan continued. "Why are you fighting for Thomas? He's using the Maverick virus, and Model W is using him. It's everything we were created to fight, and now you're fighting for them? What's gotten in to you?!"

"You know not of what you speak!" Harpuia cried out in anger as a peal of thunder roared through the sky above.

"Then tell me!" Leviathan continued, unfazed. "Fafnir I can understand; he's too stupid to care about anyone but himself. Once he understands exactly what's at stake he'll come around. But you...why can't you see that you're helping lead us all down the path of destruction?"

"Of course I can! I'm not a blind fool, I know exactly what Thomas is, and what he's doing!"

"Then why-"

"Because he's doing exactly what I want him to!"

Both Aile and Leviathan were speechless for a moment. It was Aile who recovered first. "You want Thomas to infect all of humanity with the Maverick virus?"
"That's only the first stage of the plan," Harpuia said. "He plans to infect them all, then remake the world with himself as its leader. After that, he'll kill off the infected, and recreate the human race as he deems fit using the generations of biological information stored in the Legion archives. But this time they'll all be conditioned to be loyal to him, and he will create a vast, mighty empire that will first span the globe, then reach into the stars!" By the time Harpuia finished the speech he had a distinct mocking tone in his voice. "Ha! The foolishness of a madman."

"Then why are you letting him go through with it?!" Leviathan yelled angrily. "He's already killed thousands of innocent people, and he's about to kill tens – no, hundreds of thousands more! If you knew, why didn't you stop it?!"

"Because they deserved it!" Harpuia raged, and another peal of thunder ripped through the clouds above as they roiled and bubbled, their bottoms lighting up with bolts of lightning. "Humanity is a plague! Filth! A disease, slowly rotting away everything it touches! Look around you, sister! Look at what humanity has done with the world we fought to save!

"The oceans, an unlivable mess. The forests, a biological disaster. Have you seen the deserts that stretch for miles? Where there used to be lakes, vibrant with life, there is now nothing but salt and death. And instead of fixing it, humanity hides, safe in their cities, repeating the same mistakes, the same wars, over and over again.

"How many chances must we give them, sister? How many times must they destroy this planet we call home before we realize where the problem lies?!"

"So you decided to just let Thomas wipe everybody out?" Aile asked incredulously. "Just like that?"

"Yes, and after he'd begun rebuilding, I would remove him as well. Then the world would finally have a chance to heal, free from the taint of humanity."

"Do you have any idea how insane you sound?" Leviathan said, her voice low. "You can't wipe out an entire species just because you don't like them. Sure, the world's pretty messed up right now – those are my oceans you're talking about right now, remember - but the people you're killing? It's not their fault. It's reploids like us, and people like Weil, who made it that way. They're still paying the price for the decisions we made over a hundred years ago. You can't condemn them for the decisions we made."

"You're saying they're blameless? Then I ask you, do you enjoy your current state of being?" Harpuia countered.

Leviathan paused for a moment, slightly startled by the question. "What do you mean?" The biometal replied cautiously.

"Do you like being a biometal? An essence, a tool to be used by another, with no power of your own? Enslaved by humanity, to do your master's bidding as they see fit? Forever trapped in a prison of a human's creation, until the day your data finally fades from existence?" Harpuia's voice continued to rise as he spoke, until he finished with a shout.

"That's not what-"

"Aile, hush," Leviathan interrupted. "He needs to hear this from me." She paused a moment to gather her thoughts before continuing.

"Harpuia, if that is what your experience as a biometal has been, then I...can more easily see where you're coming from. And until recently, I probably agreed with you. I allowed Thetis to use my powers because I thought he would help me protect the oceans, and I thought that's what I wanted...but that wasn't it at all. What I wanted was to make a difference, to be important, like I was back in the days of Neo Arcadia. To be respected, to be powerful...to be myself again.

"But trying to force our will on the world is wrong. This isn't our world anymore – it belongs to humans like Aile, Ashe, Vent, the Guardians, the Hunters, even the Raiders. Our glory days are over. But that doesn't mean we have to give up our freedom, either. Aile and I have only been together for a short time, but I already feel more alive than I have since the day I woke up and found myself in this...shell of a life.

"Harpuia, if you feel trapped, it's only a prison of your own making. Humanity can be dark and evil, but it can also be wonderful and good. If you've been a part of that evil, then it's because you allowed yourself to be a part of it. If we want to change the world, fix the damage we've done to it – and I mean really fix it – we have to step up and take responsibility for the damage we've caused.

"Being a biometal isn't a punishment. It's a second chance; a chance to set things right. But it's not just our world anymore - you can't just wipe everything out and start over. There are bad things in the world, but there are also good, and they deserve to keep on living. I...we won't let you hurt them."

Harpuia continued to glare at her for a few moments, then the anger suddenly disappeared from his eyes, and he unexpectedly lowered his weapons. "You may be right," he said, sighing deeply.

Aile blinked. "What?"

"Up until a few days ago, I would have argued with you with every fiber of my being. I had spent years reflecting on the state of the world and my place within it, and these were the conclusions I had come to. I was firm in my resolve, ready to give my life, betray my allies, my family, to see it through to the end, to protect this world, to try and save it from the horrors we unleashed upon it. I had convinced myself I was doing the right thing, and Aeolus was fully prepared to die along with me." He shook his head. "I never would have thought my belief could be shaken so completely in such a short time."

"What happened, then?" Aile asked. "What changed your mind?"

Leviathan chuckled, already sure of the answer. "The same thing that always happens."

Harpuia nodded sagely. "He is not called the God of Destruction simply because of the physical power he wields. He also challenges ideas and beliefs; he ignores rules, disobeys laws, and defies governments. He does not stand for the status quo, and in doing so destroys it, creating chaos and destruction from which new ideas are then formed. It is that which is his true power, and which truly earns him the moniker of God.

"I spent years considering how best to reset the world, convincing myself that I was in the right, that it was the only way. My belief was ironclad...and it took Zero a mere three days to tear me down and once again throw everything I believed into question.

"Sister; you, too, are no longer the same as you once were. Where before you cared only for the oceans, now you have found a true partner, and have discovered a second chance at life that one of us ever imagined could be possible. Simply by appearing, Zero has instantly disrupted the entire balance of the world, where nothing is quite the same as it was mere days ago."

"Does this mean...you won't fight us?" Aile asked hopefully, but Harpuia shook his head.

"Unfortunately, it does not. While I have faltered in my beliefs, I still believe the only way to truly save this planet is to remove the plague of humanity from it. It may not be fair, but humanity must pay the price for the damage it has caused."

"And you truly think that's the best way?" Leviathan demanded. "Kill everything and start over?"

"Truthfully, I'm not sure which way is best. That is why we will fight, and let fate decide the path the world will follow. If I truly am wrong, and humanity is worth saving, then prove it by defeating me!"

"Harpuia, you're being unreasonable!" Leviathan argued. "You know we have the advantage!"

"In a fair battle, yes. However, you are in my domain now, and I think you will find me a formidable opponent. Now, this chatter has gone on long enough – prepare yourselves!"

Harpuia raised his sabers and charged, electricity crackling behind him as he shot towards them like a lightning bolt. Aile raised her trident and prepared to stand her ground, but was caught by surprise when Aeolus zig-zagged at the last second, coming at her from a much lower angle than she'd expected, without any loss of speed. She barely managed to get the tip of her trident down far enough to deflect one saber, then spun away from the second, taking a light blow along one of her legplates. She unleashed an icy burst around herself to blow Harpuia back and keep disrupt his assault, then lashed out with a backhanded swipe of her own, releasing a an icy wave as the trident blade arced through the air.

Not bothering to close back in for another round of melee, Harpuia shot up and over the ice wave, then fired a barrage of Sonic Boom attacks of his own. Aile took the blows on her heavily-armored forearms, and the soundwaves dissipated harmlessly, but it gave Harpuia the opportunity to close in once again, zig-zagging at improbable angles until he finally scored a hit from behind, once again leaving a deep cut through Aile's heavy armor.

"How is he maneuvering like that?" Aile asked her biometal quietly after scaring Harpuia off with another icy burst. "Physics don't work like that! I went to school, there's things like momentum and acceleration and...and...stuff!"

I don't know, but he's definitely not playing by the same rules you are. If we can just manage to get one good hit on him we can probably take him down, but...here he comes again!

Where last time Harpuia sent a series of Sonic Booms, this time there was a pair of spinning electric discs coming at her, one from each side. Rather than dodge them she decided to use them as bait. She erected an ice sphere around here, a complete barrier to attacks from all angles, as protection. The discs hit it and fizzled out, but at the same time, Harpuia attacked from below, crashing through the ice at her feet.

"Got you!" she exclaimed, and immediately summoned an icy press above her, crushing the barrier and the press down on them both. Harpuia realized slightly too late that he had fallen for a trap and tried to reverse course, but only escaped the worst of it – he tumbled down out of the chaotic mess of ice and snow, his armor covered in frost, and failed to dodge Aile as she chased after him, slashing across his right shoulder with her trident. She tried to follow up with a sideways slash across his back, but by then he'd recovered enough to make a series of aerial dodges that she simply couldn't follow.

"Clever girl," Harpuia muttered once he'd gotten a safe distance away. "It's time to up the stakes!" He raised his sabers in a cross over his head and let out a yell, a yell that turned into a howl, which became a howling wind as he was engulfed in a fierce tornado. Aile struggled to stay in one place as the winds buffeted her from all sides, and soon dark stormclouds began to form in the sky above Harpuia, growing larger by the second. She tried to form an attack and stop him, but it took all of her concentration just to stay in the air, and if she fell to the ground there was no way she'd be able to stop him.

As the clouds grew larger and the winds around Harpuia grew stronger, tornadoes began to spin off from him, funnels that whipped along the ground, tearing up anything they touched and throwing it into the air. Soon the overall turbulence died down to a level where Aile could once again maneuver herself, but there were dozens of small tornadoes she'd have to fly around or risk getting tossed around like a ragdoll, and possibly slammed with a flying piece of a building.

"I am the Lord of the Air!" Harpuia yelled, thunder and lightning cracking through the black stormclouds overhead. "You have dared to challenge me in my domain! Prepare to suffer the consequences!"

"Awfully full of himself, isn't he?" Aile quipped.

He does have a penchant for theatre, yes. Doesn't mean you shouldn't take him seriously though.

Harpuia took a much more direct approach this time, charging Aile head-on at maximum speed and making no effort to dodge. She braced herself as best she could, coating herself in a layer of ice for extra protection before Harpuia made contact with a thunderous explosion of air. They both went flying backward a dozen or so feet, their weapons locked together for a few moments before Harpuia began a flurry of saber attacks. Using both ends of her trident Aile successfully fought him off, but he was too fast for her to counterattack. He pressed her slowly backward, until Aile heard Leviathan yell in her mind, Tornado, behind you!

Harpuia had been slowly pressing her backward, trying to get her caught up in one of his tornadoes. It had nearly worked too, as he was still right up in her face, pushing her back into it. It was circling around at her from the left, and soon she would be right in its path. Instead, she made an easily-dodgeable overhand slash, then when Harpuia moved aside, kept going downward, quickly spun around, and pointed her trident upward, spraying a cone of frigid air at him, cold enough to instantly freeze over any surface it touched. Harpuia darted around it and tried to come at her from below again, but she expected it and waved her trident in an arc, spraying the cold air in a blast around her, eventually clipping him slightly and forcing him to back off. Aile took the opportunity to scoot away from the approaching tornado.

We need to press the attack! Leviathan urged. Quick, while he's recovering, go after him!

Aile nodded in agreement, charging up energy as she chased after the green Mega Man before he could recover. He was so fast that she hadn't had many opportunities to go on the offensive, and she needed to change that. The more she could keep him off-balance, the better. As he retreated away from her she summoned ice walls to block his path, but they weren't much of an obstacle for the most agile flyer to ever grace the skies; he deftly maneuvered around them, still increasing his distance from her. She tried detonating icy firecrackers near him, but it was hard to place them such that he didn't just outpace the explosions. She managed to clip him a couple of times, but he still didn't seem to be slowing down.

"I need more speed!" Aile yelled into the wind. It was the only way she could keep the pressure on.

Careful Aile, you're going to play right into his hands!

"At least then he'll be in reach!" She replied, and released her stored charge as a blast of icy power directly behind her, propelling her forward.

"A valiant attempt," Harpuia yelled as she began to finally close in on him, "but you are still far outmatched!"

Just as Harpuia was entering striking range, he vanished, leaving Aile to swing at empty sky. "What...?" she said, confused for a moment, before the green Mega Man reappeared just as suddenly as he'd disappeared, a short distance above her...only now, there were six of him, forming a circle around her.

"My Mirror Strike will be the end of you," all six Harpuias declared in unison, then dived down to attack.

"He's everywhere!" Aile exclaimed, rapidly deflecting blows from all angles as the half-dozen Harpuias descended on her. "How is he so fast?!"

He's not! Leviathan replied, they're just after-images. You don't need to block all of them - the fake ones don't have any substance!

As she finished speaking Aile spun and braced to parry a blow from behind, but the blow passed through without impacting, and the Harpuia in front of her who had launched the attack then vanished into thin air. Leviathan was right – most of the Harpuias coming at her were decoys, meant to distract her and keep her on the defensive so the real Harpuia could slip an attack past her. "How can I tell which are the real ones?!"

Keep moving and watch them! The images can't chase you!

"Easier said than done!" While she was now able to hover, Model L still wasn't meant for aerial movement. Aile tried to add evasive maneuvers to her defense strategy, but it was only moderately effective. The number of images coming at her continued to increase, to the point that even though she was successful in figuring out several of the fakes, there was no way to keep track of them all, especially since they kept disappearing and reappearing at random. Several of them got past her darting movements and whirling trident, and on more than one occasion, the one that got through was the real one, leaving a deep gouge in her armor each time.

"There's too many!" Aile yelled. "I can't-"

Aile, watch out!

Her attention completely consumed with avoiding the images, she'd forgotten about the tornadoes. Leviathan's warning came too late, and she was instantly swept up by the intense air current. Her meager flight capabilities were no match for the strength of the storm Harpuia had conjured and she was sent flying upward, spinning wildly out of control.

Aile knew she had to somehow free herself from the tornado's current before she would be able to make herself stable again, but no matter how hard she fired her leg thrusters she couldn't seem to break free. She was helpless as she tumbled upward into the sky, approaching the darkness of the stormclouds above.

She knew Harpuia would attack her while she was vulnerable, and she tried to brace herself, but she still wasn't ready when she was suddenly face-to-face with him, and a lancing pain shot through her shoulder as one of his two blades pierced through her heavy armor, nearly reaching her bare skin – an impressive feat, considering the strength of Model L's defenses.

"You're not even trying," Harpuia muttered.

Aile fought through the pain and prepared to unleash an icy burst in Harpuia's face, but before she could even begin to charge he reached back with his other hand, his free saber held up towards the clouds, and called down a storm of lightning on himself. His saber acted like a lightning rod, and the fury of nature passed through him, then out the other saber and into Aile.

Blinding pain shot through her entire body as lighting arced out from her every limb, and to her credit, it was several seconds before she began screaming. Normally nigh-immune to the effects of electricity, Harpuia was passing the current through his saber and directly into her body, bypassing most of the protection normally afforded to her by the biometal. A veritable storm of lightning bolts struck his outstretched saber and then passed through her body, and soon the smell of cooked flesh began to waft out from the inside of her armor as she stopped screaming – not from lack of trying, but because there was no air left in her lungs.

Finally Harpuia took pity and stopped, Aile's body immediately going limp on his saber. The only evidence that she was still conscious was that she was still Megamerged, as she was completely motionless.

"You think I'll let you beat me like this?" Harpuia said, sounding angry. "I told you – this isn't just a fight to see which of us is the better warrior. This is about conviction. If you aren't willing to do whatever it takes to win, then you don't deserve to be the one who walks away." Aile let out an involuntary cry of pain as he brought his second saber around and jammed it into her other shoulder, lifting her high above him. "You don't deserve to be the one who saves this world."

He lowered her down and held her in front of him, then kicked her full in the chest, sending her flying downward. She flew limply through the air until she finally slammed into the side of the Legion tower, crashing through the wall, which promptly collapsed on top of her, burying her beneath it.

Aile, are you all right?

I don't know. You tell me.

Harpuia stopped before he did any permanent damage. You're pretty roughed up right now, but it's nothing I can't repair, given time. But…he's right.

I know.

He's willing to do anything to win. If we want to stop him, if we…if we really believe we're right, then our conviction has to be just as strong. If we stop him, then fail to follow through, we'll be even worse than the thing we're trying to stop.

I know. But…it's scary.

I know. I'm scared too. We don't know what's going to happen. But…I trust you Aile. Whatever happens, I believe you'll do the right thing.

…I trust you too. No matter what happens, we can do this. Together.

More than anything, we need to stop this. Stop Aeolus, stop Harpuia, stop Thomas, stop Model W. Right here, right now – the beginning of the end.

Let's show the world the power of Model L.

Zero was making good time up the Legion tower, despite Thomas dispatching waves of minions for him to deal with. Easily swatted out of the way, they were merely a nuisance, likely stragglers from the attack on the city. He remained unscathed as he approached the top floors, climbing another non-functional elevator shaft to the upper offices, when he felt the walls shudder from an impact. Not worried, but always prepared, he readied his Z-Saber as he approached the final door of the shaft.

Before he reached the exit, however, a sudden blast of subarctic air blew the heavy steel door right out of its frame, sending it tumbling down the shaft, accompanied by a cloud of dust and rock. Zero clung to the side and shielded his eyes, his environmental systems racing to keep up with the sudden drop in temperature as the walls around him were suddenly covered in a thick sheet of ice. The entire event took only a few moments, and when it passed Zero had a feeling he knew who was responsible.

He finished climbing the shaft, stepped through the door, and found himself standing in the middle of an ice sculpture. Most of the walls had been blasted away, but those that hadn't were covered in a thick sheet of clear ice, as was the ground, the ceiling, and everything in between. It was like someone had detonated a can of icy paint.

And over by the far wall, next to a huge hole that lead to the outside air, stood a figure in a beautiful blue dress. It hugged her curves to her waist, where it began to ripple down like water, ending just above her feet. She wore no helmet, her long blue hair tumbling like waves down her back to just above her waist. The only indications that she wasn't just a normal human were a pair of slim, metallic gloves on her hands and a pair of nondescript, blue-and-white metallic boots that covered her feet to an indeterminable height.

Having not noticed him yet, the woman was giving her own body a once-over, as though she'd never seen it before. When she did finally look around the room, she looked only slightly less surprised at her surroundings than Zero was.

"Leviathan?" Zero shouted, venturing a guess.

The woman's head immediately turned to look at him, and smiled upon seeing his face. "Zero! This is unexpected."

"Is that you? Or is it Aile?"

The woman giggled. "That's a good question. I guess you could say it's both. Isn't that interesting?"

Zero shook his head. "I don't understand."

The woman shrugged. "Neither do I. Don't worry about it."

"All right, then... how did you…?" He motioned at the icy devastation around the room.

"Oh, yes. That was quite unexpected. This all seems to be a result of engaging a Biomerged Overdrive while our minds are extremely in sync. I do believe I'm quite powerful at the moment." She giggled again. "Oh yes. Very powerful indeed."

Zero raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. "What are you doing here? Where's Aeolus?"

"Aeolus is gone for the moment; Harpuia used his body to give me a good knocking. I suppose I should go deal with him. I'll leave Thomas to you."

She turned and calmly walked out the hole in the wall. Zero began to say something, but rather than plummet to her death, a floating platform of ice formed directly under her foot as it fell; then another, and another with each step, disappearing as soon as her feet left them. Soon the platforms began to carry her away, and she it was like she was on an automatic sidewalk, zooming away into the sky.

It doesn't even look like she realizes she's doing it, Zero thought as he watched her slowly saunter through the air to her duel to the death. It's just that effortless.

"Good luck," she called over her shoulder, "and be careful, Zero Omega."

Zero wasn't entirely sure why she placed such emphasis on that last name, but he shrugged it off. He knew who he was, and it didn't matter – he had a job to do.

She was filled with an unbreakable calm as she once again approached the hovering Harpuia, this time in her new form. There was no uncertainty, no apprehension, no questions; just the calmness of knowing exactly what she was capable of, knowing exactly what Harpuia would do, and knowing exactly how she was going to stop him.

Then again, you had to keep calm when you had the power to manipulate reality at your fingertips. Otherwise that could go to your head really quick.

This battle was going to be very one-sided.

"I see you've finally decided to take this seriously," Harpuia said as she approached. She chuckled slightly in response.

"Yes, I'm afraid I have. I understand now, how you were able to defeat me before. Naughty Harpuia, not telling me that Overdrive in Biomerge lets you manipulate cyberspace. That wasn't very fair. Unfortunately for you, it won't work anymore."

"I thought not. I assume you have leveled the playing field."

She shook her head. "Oh no, I've more than leveled it. I've taken it even further than anyone could have possibly imagined."

Harpuia's eyes narrowed. "Leviathan, what did you do?"

She smiled wistfully. "I'm not just Leviathan anymore. Nor am I Aile. I'm not a human, or a reploid, or even a biometal. I'm something new, a human with the ability to see and manipulate the cyberworld. I exist in the physical world, yet I can freely bend its laws to obey that of the digital world." With a wave of her hand a delicate ice sculpture of Harpuia appeared, in his Neo Arcadian form, down to the finest detail. With another wave of her hand it shattered into a thousand tiny fragments, hanging in the air like a cloud made of diamonds.

Harpuia's eyes were wide at the implications of one being holding so much power. "Who…no…what are you?!"

She chuckled again, almost girlish. "As I am both Aile and Leviathan, I've decided that using either of those names would be inappropriate – for now, you can call me...Aurora. As for what…well, the only word that immediately comes to mind is…" she looked him in the eye, her own eyes twinkling menacingly. "Goddess."

Harpuia took a tighter grip on his sabers. "That's quite a promotion you're claiming there, General."

Aurora laughed, throwing her arms wide as she spun in a circle, grinning like an idiot. "Oh, Harpuia, I really do wish you knew how this felt. It's not just the power; it's the freedom! I can do anything, go anywhere – the world is my oyster!" She stopped spinning, looking back at Harpuia pointedly. "There's just the small matter of you and Thomas trying to steal it from me. I don't suppose I can talk you out of it now?"

Harpuia shook his head. "My resolve will not waver. Only one of us will walk away from this battle."

Aurora sighed ruefully. "Very well then. Don't say I didn't give you the chance." She reached out her hand and a pure crystalline trident winked into existence, made completely of ice; it glowed with an otherworldly bluish hue. "Come; see how well you fare against the Goddess of Ice!"

Harpuia started off with a bang – literally. He clapped his swords together and a massive thunderclap rang out, shattering the windows of all the building within a mile. But before the soundwave could even reach Aurora he was dashing forward, manipulating cyberspace to change direction at the last moment and come down from above with a two-handed saber attack. He timed it so his blades would connect at the same moment the shockwave reached his opponent, adding extra force to the blow.

Not expecting to win on the first attack, he'd expected a parry of some sort. What he wasn't expecting was to cleave clean through her body and have it explode into millions of ice fragments, all of which had razor-sharp edges, and most of which flew straight past him, cutting across all parts of his body. The wounds were inconsequential, but they still stung.

"The funny thing about ice," he heard Aurora say from behind him, "is that if you look at it from the right angle, it can be just as reflective as any mirror – and just as painful when you break it. You really should be more observant, Harpuia."

Without dignifying her taunt with a response, he whipped his blades around in an arc, sending two large razor-sharp wind blades behind him blindly as he turned around. As Aurora floated lazily around them he called down a lightning strike, hitting her directly on the head.

"Oooh, that tickled," she said, giggling again. "I could get rid of these clouds so you can't do that anymore, but you see, clouds don't just make lightning."

And then it began to rain.

And not just a little bit – the words 'torrential downpour' came to mind. Within seconds Harpuia was completely soaked as sheets of water fell from the sky, blanketing the ground. It was so thick he could barely see more than twenty feet away before it looked like a lake in the sky. Unfortunately, this also meant that Aurora had disappeared into the darkness, leaving him floating aimlessly.

She really is a Goddess, he thought to himself. Biometals didn't have the power to create matter – they simply manipulated what was already there. But this…she was creating a massive rainstorm from nothing. He had no doubt that she could flood the entire city if she wanted, and nobody could stop her. When you have unlimited control over cyberspace, it's just a matter of tweaking some data.

"Is this what you want? To prove how powerful you are by making me wet?" Harpuia yelled into the darkness.

"Of course not," Aurora's voice replied from directly behind him. He whirled around to find her standing there, watching him…and completely dry. The rain was simply falling around her. "This is to prove how powerful I am."

She waved one hand and suddenly every drop of rain stopped, hovering in place. Harpuia stood frozen, afraid to move as she waved her arms and the droplets began to move sideways, following the movements of her arms as she waved them about.

"You see, Harpuia, when I say I can do anything…" she snapped her fingers, and all the raindrops were suddenly tiny, icy spikes. "I really do mean anything."

He didn't wait for the second snap. He unleashed a tornado and blasted a column of the tiny spikes out of the way, then dashed away at full speed as she released the entire wave of miniature spikes at him, following him like a swarm of homing missiles. Individually they wouldn't hurt much, but being impaled by a few thousand of them would undoubtedly be the end of him.

"Leaving already, Harpy?" He heard her yell after him. "I'm just getting started!"

Luckily for him, the miniature ice missiles were not particularly good at flying, while he was the best flyer on the planet, with the added ability to bend physics. After several quick maneuvers and tornado blasts he grouped them up and dispatched them, blasting them to a fine crystal dust. Unfortunately he lost track of Aurora, and as he spun to look for her, she was nowhere to be found.

"Are you looking for me?" Her voice said from behind him again. He spun around to find her smiling at him, with that infuriating smile, despite having just looked there.

"How do you keep doing that?!" He yelled in frustration.

"Reality begins to lose meaning when it mixes with cyberspace," she replied, shrugging nonchalantly. "I was watching you from that building down there, but you looked like you were finished with your last toys, so I thought I'd come give you more to play with."

"Is that all this is to you? A game?!" Harpuia screamed at her.

"Oh no, I assure you, I'm taking this deadly seriously. He, however, is not." She pointed over his shoulder.

Harpuia turned and found himself staring into the maw of a gigantic ice dragon. Not the serpentine kind he was accustomed to seeing Leviathan making, but a full-on, four-limbed, winged beast, with a very large head full of very large, very sharp teeth.

"You see, he likes to play with toys. In his mouth. So you may want to be careful, those teeth look really sharp."

Gritting his teeth angrily, Harpuia lazily sidestepped a massive bite from the dragon, then brought a saber down on the dragon's icy neck…and to his surprise, discovered that his blade was unable to cut through the thick ice blocks.

Aurora chuckled. "You didn't think I'd make it that easy, did you?"

The dragon turned its massive head and snapped at him, and he backed off to a safe distance. He circled around, looking for a weak point, when it began breathing waves of frosty breath at him. He easily avoided the clouds of ice and snow, but felt the air temperature near him dip whenever they went by – he knew if they hit him, his weakness to freezing temperatures would cause his thrusters to seize up.

Luckily dodging wasn't a problem. It may have looked big, but this thing was still just a nuisance. He kicked in his cyberspace-enhanced speed, and in the blink of an eye he was behind the beast, between its wings. He jammed a saber straight into its back with all his might, successfully piercing whatever reinforcement Aurora had given its scales, and then called lightning down to strike the blade. Ten rapid lightning strikes shot down from the sky, using the blade as a conduit to enter the dragon, and almost instantly blew it apart into a fine dust.

"Such an effective trick," Aurora said from behind him again, but he was expecting her this time, he spun around, blades ready, and this time managed to connect, her trident easily parrying the blows. He followed up with a quick combination of high and low strikes, testing her defenses, but she easily deflected them, as expected. "Ah ah ah," she said, admonishing him, "you haven't earned the right to fight me like that yet." Then she disappeared again.

But Harpuia was watching. Not the physical world, but in the cyberworld. He'd been using it to augment his attacks and abilities, to give them enhanced properties. But Aurora was practically living in it, existing simultaneously in both worlds, which gave her incredible power. He knew there was no way she was physically faster than him, so the only way she could possibly be moving so fast was to manipulate real space digitally. If he could see how she did it, it was possible he could replicate it and follow her, thus eliminating some of her advantages. After all, he may not be quite as powerful as her, but he could still manipulate the cyberworld in some minor ways.

Sure enough, now that he knew what he was looking for, just before Aurora blinked out of existence he saw the changes. She wasn't actually "moving" at all – she was simply changing her own location to be someplace nearby. She was basically her own portable trans-server, capable of transporting anywhere she wanted to go instantaneously.

Harpuia wasn't capable of that level of data manipulation, but he was capable of understanding the destination coordinates. As long as he could keep her in his sights, she wouldn't be able to surprise him again.

When Aurora materialized nearby, she found Harpuia's blades waiting for her. She threw up her trident to deflect them, smiling. "Finally catching on, I see."

"You can't defeat me with tricks," Harpuia said defiantly, slashing both sabers down viciously. Aurora caught them on her trident and held them, locking the two Mega Men in a battle of strength.

"Oh I think I can," Aurora said, still smiling. "You beat one dragon with little effort – but what about ten?"

Harpuia felt a ripple in cyberspace, and true to her word, he was suddenly surrounded by ten of the icy monstrosities. "See? I could also do a hundred, or a thousand. It would take me so little effort to make them, and you would eventually tire yourself out smashing them. You are very powerful, Harpuia, but your power has a limit; mine does not.

"However…I respect you more than that." The ice dragons all abruptly shattered, sending chunks of ice and snow falling to the ground. "You want a fair fight? Fine, I'll give you one. Come at me with all your muster, and I'll shut you down. It's time to end this, Harpuia."

She pushed him away with a great shove, then grabbed and swung her trident at him sideways with both hands, like a baseball bat. Harpuia prepared to deflect the blow and counter, but was caught surprised by the immense force of the blow – rather than being hit by a trident, it felt like he'd been smacked sideways by a mountain. His arms went a little numb as he was knocked back through the air, but he quickly steadied himself and prepared to dodge Aurora's follow-up, a one-handed swipe at his midsection. He ducked under it and dashed forward, but found her other empty hand coming up at him, spewing a thick wave of ice. He zig-zagged around her, avoiding the ice wave and coming at her from behind, but as he lunged forward with a two-saber stab she simply dropped downward a few feet, then lunged back upward at him. Harpuia barely knocked her out of the way, and was caught by the waves of ice that poured off the sides of her trident as she went by, briefly freezing his arm to the point of numbness. He flexed the hand repeatedly as his systems tried desperately to restore function to it, while he tried to fight off Aurora with only one hand.

She continued her relentless assault, each swing of her icy trident expelling a fresh blast of ice in every direction, He ducked and weaved around the blows, attempting to parry as few possible, as each time he did it felt like she'd hit him with a train. The force of her blows must have been coming from cyberspace, as she twirled her weapon like it weighed no more than a feather, spinning and slashing with a practiced grace, her blue-and-white dress spinning around as she danced across sky after her prey, in the most deadly waltz ever witnessed.

And through it all, the most disturbing part was her unchanging expression. Her ice-blue eyes remained fixed ahead, sometimes not even looking directly at him, instead staring off at something in the distance. Her mouth was flat, except for a slight curve at the edge that made it look like she may have been smiling, perhaps sardonically.

But most prominently, she remained calm. At no point did she seem to be expending any sort of effort, or express any indication that she was at all concerned with Harpuia's actions. In the whirlwind of battle, she was a frozen pillar of calm; unblinking and unmoving.

He regained use of his frozen arm and tried to go on the offensive again, but it was no use – whenever he attacked she quickly rebuffed him, then countered with a strike of her own that he could barely avoid – and sometimes didn't. Before long his considerable energy reserves began to dwindle from repairing the damage she was inflicting, and he had yet to land an attack on her.

Without realizing it he found himself on the defensive once again, trying to devise a counter-strategy to Aurora's philosophy of offense being the best defense. He used his speed to dodge as many attacks as possible, and the physics-defying aspects of their battle made him think in a full three-dimensions; she could come at him from any direction at any moment, and he had to be equally inventive with his evasions.

And she definitely did come at him from every angle imaginable. She would open with a two-handed lunge from above, only to follow up from behind him with a two-handed overhand slash. Next would be a four-step slashing rush, but each slash would come from a different side. Not only that, but each attack was always accompanied by ice bursts in the air around him, hanging around for a few seconds before exploding into deadly, glittering shards, limiting his escape options and showering him with painful, icy shrapnel. And there was the simple fact that she still had the strength of a titan backing every blow, knocking him about like a fly even when he successfully blocked her.

Aurora halted her assault for a moment, and grateful as he was for the respite, Harpuia was suspicious. "Let's see how well you handle one of your own attacks!" she yelled, then abruptly vanished. He tried to follow her movement, but before he could track where she'd gone she reappeared again directly in front him, trident poised to skewer him. He nimbly dodged to the left…

…and found another Aurora waiting for him there, taking a horizontal swipe at his midsection. He dropped straight downward, only to nearly impale himself on the blade of another trident.

Images! They can't all be real, I just need to find the-

He dodged a trident slash and felt the air move as it swished past his head – clearly more than just an image.

-real one!

"Got you!" He yelled as he brought his sabers around, using one to knock Aurora's trident away and plowing the other across her back. It was a direct hit, and the blade bit deep…but there was no cry of pain.

Instead, the thing that he'd thought was Aurora faded into a clear crystal sculpture, then exploded in his face, freezing every inch of exposed skin he had and blasting him clear through the sky.

Everything after that was lost in a haze of pain as he tumbled through the sky like a ragdoll, knocked around by Aurora's icy doppelgangers as they continued their assault. He had no idea how long it went on, but by the time he realized they stopped he could barely feel his limbs, and his armor was cracked and useless.

"There's no shame in admitting defeat, Harpuia," Aurora said as she reappeared a distance away, still as calm as ever, "especially not when you're so badly outclassed. You're obviously in no condition to continue, so let's just end it here, shall we?"

"Never!" Harpuia's defiant yell was accompanied by a rumble of thunder and crack of lightning in the clouds overhead. "As long as there is breath in my body, I will continue to fight! If you are my sister, you know this!"

Aurora sighed. "Yes, unfortunately, I do. I was hoping that would not be the case. I'm trying to give you an easy way out, Harpuia. All you have to do is take it."

"A way out?!" Harpuia roared. "Do not insult me! I am Sage Harpuia, General of Arcadia, and I surrender to no one! It may indeed be the strength of a Goddess that takes me down, but you shall not escape unscathed!"

He raised his sabers to the sky and called the lightning. Not just one or two strikes this time, but all of it. Strike after strike connected with his blades, charging him with power far beyond what he could normally hold. When there was no power left in the clouds, he called down the storm itself, the clouds whirling down to be sucked into his blades.

"Harpuia, what are you doing?!" Aurora yelled, launching a barrage of ice attacks, all of which failed to penetrate the fierce wind barrier surrounding him. "There no way you can contain that much power! It'll destroy you, and Aeolus along with you!"

"NOT BEFORE I SWAT YOU FROM THE SKY!" He yelled, his voice reverberating through the air like there were twelve of him. Purple electricity sparked from his mouth as he spoke, and his eyes glowed with an incandescent violet hue. "THE AIR IS MY DOMAIN, AND I WILL REMOVE YOU FROM IT!"

For the space of a few seconds his entire body glowed a whitish-purple, and he seemed to become pure energy...then he was simply gone. The dark clouds in the sky, the howling winds, the buffeting walls of air...all of it, gone. Then Aurora tried to take a breath and realized that all of the air was gone.

Then it slammed into her all at once, as Harpuia came down on her with the speed and unpredictability of a lightning bolt. They hit the ground in almost the same instant in an explosion that was heard across the entire city, blasting the nearest buildings to pieces and shattering any glass left in one piece in the entire city.

More importantly, the electrical power Harpuia had stored up created a big enough electrical discharge that the energy released when they slammed into the ground together created an extremely strong electromagnetic pulse. Most modern systems were protected against the effects of EMP, but not when it was this powerful.

Any mechaniloid left standing within a kilometer was instantly fried.

The Hunters and Guardians found their communications stopped working again, but only for a few moments before they quickly overcame the interference.

Vent, Ashe, and Atlas all felt a slight disorientation as they almost lost their Megamerges, but they were far enough away from the blast that they managed to hold on.

At the point of impact, however, the point of connection between reality and the cyberworld was completely severed, and for the briefest of moments, all electrical motion stopped. As the dust cleared, at the bottom of a massive impact crater lay the motionless, un-Biomerged forms of Aile and Aeolus, their biometals nowhere to be found.

When Aile woke, she was cold and wet. She was lying in a puddle of water, and heard the hiss and gurgle of leaking pipes somewhere nearby. Her head was ringing, and her first attempt at opening her eyes resulted in a blinding flash of pain, but it quickly subsided. She looked around and saw that she was lying at the bottom of a crater, her legs pinned beneath a large piece of what used to be a road. She wasn't sure if it was lucky or not that she couldn't feel them.

She heard a groaning come from her left, and looked over to find Aeolus stumbling to his feet. His Megamerged armor was nowhere to be seen, and then she realized hers wasn't either. Harpuia's final attack had killed both of their Biomerges. Unfortunately, she was pinned and helpless while, aside from perhaps a headache, Aeolus seemed to be perfectly fine. He too quickly recovered, and soon saw Aile lying prone on the ground nearby. A menacing grin split his features as he fully grasped the situation at hand.

"Well, what have we here?" Aeolus came over to her, deliberately walking over the broken piece of concrete pinning Aile's legs on his way, but she didn't feel a thing – as suspected, they were completely broken. Fleuve could repair them at the Guardian Base, but that didn't do her any good at the moment. "It would seem that whatever my biometal did while I was unconscious was more than you could handle."

"It knocked us both unconscious," Aile replied sarcastically, "I just got unlucky and had a road land on me. It could have happened to either of us."

"Regardless! It would seem that fate has decided that I should be the victor of this round." He drew the saber at his belt, the same one he'd used on the ship's reactor core earlier. It was blackened and charred from the microseconds it had spent puncturing the shell of the reactor before Model H had taken over, but it still had a sharp edge and a point, thus rendering it dangerous. "Funny, isn't it? Two of the most powerful Mega Men on the planet, and our battle is reduced to me sticking you with a pointy object. Not the glorious finish I'd been hoping for, but effective all the same."

"You don't have to do this, Aeolus, "Aile pleaded, still helpless to defend herself.

"Oh yes I do," he countered. "If my plan is going to succeed, I can't leave anyone behind to stop me! And besides..." he grinned malevolently. "I've really been looking forward to this." He stood poised over her, saber pointed directly at her chest. "Any last words?"

"You had honor once, " Aile said sadly, through gritted teeth. "Does this look honorable to you?"

"I did," Aeolus agreed, nodding. "I was an honorable man, in an honorable world. But this is now a different kind of world, and for me to succeed, I need to become a different kind of man.

"It was fun while it lasted, but I think we both knew how this was going to end. Goodbye, Mega Man."

As the blade came down, Aile squeezed her eyes shut and threw up her hands in a futile gesture of defense...

...and then she didn't die.

Instead she felt a surge of energy shoot through her arms and into the ground below her, and heard the sound of flesh tearing, but it wasn't hers. She opened her eyes and lowered her arms and saw Aeolus impaled through the chest, lifted several feet off the ground by a huge ice spike formed from the puddle at their feet.

The look of bewilderment on his face as he tried to claw his way off the spike matched her own, but the life bled out of him quickly, and within seconds he stopped moving completely, leaving Aile alone in the silence of the crater.

A few minutes passed before Leviathan's voice in her head snapped her out of her daze. Aile! Aile, where are you? Are you okay?!

No, not really.

Hold on, I'll be right there. I just...need...to...ugh! I'm trapped under something and I can't seem...to...move it!

Aile looked around blankly, and eventually saw a pile of rubble that was shifting back and forth. She reached out her hand and, much like she would have if she were Megamerged, tried to unleash a blast of power. She felt another surge of energy rush out of her, and suddenly the pile of rocks was blasted apart in a fountain of dust and ice.

Gah! What was that?! Leviathan exclaimed, and Aile could see the biometal tumbling through the air along with the debris, though she quickly regained control and righted herself.

Sorry. I don't...really know what I'm doing yet.

What? That...was you? Aile, what do you – Aeolus?!

Leviathan hovered down to her Chosen One, who still sat dumbly in a puddle of water, staring at the impaled green Mega Man in front of her. "Aile, what did you do?" She said aloud.

"I don't know," Aile replied, her voice nearly a whisper. "He was going to stab me. He had his sword out, and it was pointed at my chest, and he was going to kill me, and I just...stopped him."

"But how? We aren't Megamerged!"

"I think...we are." Aile finally tore her gaze from the still form of Aeolus to look at Model L. "I think we always are. You can still talk to me in my head, right? And I'm still using your powers. I think whatever we just did, back there in the tower, it...it permanently linked us."

"So not only are you the only person I can ever Megamerge with..." Leviathan began.

"...You can't ever stop Megamerging with me." Aile finished.

After taking a few moments to let it sink in, Leviathan sighed. "Well, I guess you'd better get used to hearing my voice in your head, then. Now, are you going to leave him up there all day?" She turned to regard Aeolus, still impaled on the ice spike.

It was typical of Leviathan to completely gloss over such a monumental side effect without making a big deal over it. After all, it was done now, no point in making a big fuss about it. They'd just have to learn to deal with it. "I suppose not," Aile replied flatly. The spike disappeared and Aeolus unceremoniously fell to the ground with a splash, landing in the rapidly-growing puddle of water at the bottom of the crater. "I mean...what do I do now? I've never...you know...it was always mechaniloids or pseudoroids, before. I've never killed an actual person. It just feels...wrong."

"I'm sorry you had to do that," Leviathan said sympathetically, "but he really gave you no other option. We tried our best to convince them otherwise, and at some point, they have to take responsibility for their own actions – even if the result is death. There was nothing you could have done, Aile."

She sighed. "I know. But that doesn't make it any easier."

"What about your legs? You don't seem to be in any pain, which I assume is a bad sign."

"Yeah. I have nano-implants in my spine that shut off my pain receptors when I get severely injured so I can't feel anything down there, but I assume they're pretty broken. I'm basically paralyzed from the waist down until I can get back to Guardian Base and have the medics fix me up. Hopefully it's just some crushed bones and I'll only be down for a couple of days."

"Hopefully. For the moment we should try to find Model H and-"

"Hey! You all right down there?!"

Leviathan was interrupted by the sound of Vent's voice from the top of the crater. Aile looked up towards it and was relieved to see her brother's worried face looking down at her, accompanied by Ashe and...Atlas?

"More or less, yeah!" She yelled back. "I can't move my legs, but Aeolus isn't moving at all, so I guess I came out on top. I could use a hand getting out from under this road, though."

"Hang on, we'll be right down!"

Within moments the three Mega Men had her surrounded, and Atlas easily flipped the concrete slab off her legs, revealing a pair of slightly mangled limbs.

"Eh, I've seen worse," Ashe said with a shrug. "This dude over here in particular seems to have not gotten off quite so lucky." She pointed a finger over her shoulder at the motionless corpse of Aeolus.

"Yeah, he, uh...when I came to he was impaled by a girder. He pried himself off it and came over to stab me with that sword of his, but he didn't quite make it. I guess I got lucky on two counts."

"Looks that way," Vent replied. "Any idea where Model H went?"

"I'm here," the familiar green biometal's voice said as he floated into view from a short distance away, "however I appear to have missed all the action." He looked down at the motionless body of Aeolus floating in a puddle.

"I'm sorry, Harpuia," Aile said sadly, but the biometal shook back and forth.

"No, it is all right. Truly, this was the best outcome we could have hoped for, given the circumstances. Aeolus would never have accepted anything less than victory, and if I had not given everything I had, I would have always been haunted by the ghost of 'what if'. Now I can move on with a clear conscience, and Aeolus can rest knowing that he, too, fought for the cause he believed in with everything he had. It simply...wasn't enough."

"But what're you gonna do now?" Ashe asked. "You were Biomerged with that guy, right? I mean, you had to be to give Aile so much trouble."

Model H bobbed up and down in confirmation. "Yes, it's true, I was. Without my Biomerge partner, I am now... I do not think I will be of much use to anyone in the near future."

"I don't think that's entirely true."

All four Mega Men looked up in surprise and saw a glowing orb of light descending from above. Aile had no idea who it was, but Leviathan apparently did, as did all the other biometals.

"Master X!" Leviathan exclaimed.

"You really get around, don't you?" Vent said, much to everyone else's surprise.

"You know this guy?" Ashe said.

"Um...not really? I mean, we talked for literally two minutes, which was apparently actually two milliseconds, and I don't know how long you have to talk to someone to say you really know them..."

"Wow, you really do ramble like that all the time," Atlas remarked.

"I'm sorry, but we need to cut this conversation short," X said, raising his voice above the crowd. "There's not much time left."

"As always, we are yours to command, Master X," Model H replied. "Such as we are."

"Don't worry, Harpuia." Although X was just a ball of light, Aile got the distinct impression that he was grinning. "I think you're going to like this next part."

Author's Note

I had this done like two months ago and just sat on it 'cause I couldn't come up with a way to end it. So sorry if the last dozen lines or so are really lame. ;_;

Thunder Tornado is Tornado Man's music from Mega Man 9. Yeah, I broke the pattern again, but you knew I was going to, :P.

So yeah, byebye Aeolus. I didn't really like him, so he got put on the chopping block. And finally the reason why Model H is being all weird! I hope it made sense. I mean the poor guy spent so long watching people mess up the world again as a digital paperweight, you gotta have some angst about that. Seriously how many times you gonna let people get away with that? Then just when you've finally gone and snapped, here comes Zero to show you how dumb you're being, just like last time. Poor Harpuia. I think he's about ready to throw in the towel.

I think this is the longest chapter I've written so far. I tried SUPER hard to make it good because, if it weren't obvious by now, I like Aile and Model L best, so I wanted to make sure I did good on them. But yet more mysterious things happening! And what is X talking about? Oooooo...

Well, this is it! Finally, the final showdown between Zero and Thomas! There couldn't POSSIBLY be anything I'm forgetting...

...Right? ;)