Hurricaune snarled as Matt smashed into her, slamming her against the wall. Even as the droplets struck her repeatedly, her neck rotor began spinning, ready to fire another blade beam at Matt.

"Let's go, Model F!" Vent shouted, seeing Matt's charge at Hurricaune.

"Right! Let's bust'em up!" Model F shouted much too enthusiastically as Vent grabbed the Biometal and thrust it out in front of him.

"Megamerge!"



Dashing forward, Vent closed in on Hurricaune and swung one of his Knuckle Busters upwards at the Wolveroid, boosters in the ends igniting and strengthening the attack. The attack smashed Hurricaune high into the air, preventing her from nailing Matt with her attack.

Edited by RisingDragon on December 4, 2008 at 20:59:36.

"Nice one, Vent!" Matt grabbed Helena by the shoulder. "Are you okay?"

She yanked her arm away and slammed her hand against the door, claws sliding out of her fingers. "Get away from me..."

"Shit!" Matt hunched down. "Listen, Helena. Focus on my voice. Here's what we're going to do. You're gonna help us fight that thing, okay?"

Helena glanced up, her fangs already forming. "How?" she asked, with a deep timbre.

"Just focus on my voice and let it happen."

Despite the powerful blow, Hurricaune landed easily, and Vent jumped between her and his allies. Aiming both Knuckle Busters at the Pseudoroid and began firing rapidly to prevent her from retaliating, sending large bolts of flame at her. Despite them, she shrugged them off with ease, and fired another cutting blade at him using her neck rotor, which smashed him backwards.

Facing Hurricaune, Matt lifted his hand, and freezing smoke billowed about his fingers. "Keep listening to me, Helena! Eyes on the prize!" He bent down and slammed his palm into the earth, sending towers of ice toward the Psuedoroid. "Frost Wave!"

"Gyahh!" Hurricaune cried out as the ice froze and arrested her systems as it struck her. Soon, though, she broke free and leaped into the air, converting her lower body into a giant drill again, attempting to position herself over Matt.

Hey, Vent, what's up with Helena? Vent heard Model F ask, causing him to look over at the girl. "What the heck?" he muttered, seeing the girl beginning what looked like a painful transformation.

Glancing up, Matt threw out his hands, expelling a gust of cold. The raindrops froze, hovering in midair as they focused into points, and shot toward Hurricaune. "Blizzard Needle!"

Behind him, he heard Helena's moan of pain, something tearing through fabric. Must be her wings.

Hurricaune cried out as the Blizzard Needles struck her form repeatedly, canceling out her attack and causing her to drop to the ground. Taking the initiative, Vent charged up his Knuckle Busters while dashing forward, smashing one, and then the other into the Pseudoroid, sending her back.

"Damn you!" she snarled, firing a pair of tornadoes at them as she was knocked back, surprising Vent by the speed of the counterattack and knocking him back.

Matt also flew back, caught by the tornado, and he tumbled aside. Spit out some nasty, wet dirt-bleh. "Helena!" he managed. He glanced over at her-her muscles were slick, tensing in the rain, and she was nearly a complete dragon. "Stay focused on me!"

Her eyes opened and she let out a screeching roar.

"Splash Bullet!" Throwing out his hands, Matt fired more droplets at the Psuedoroid, a relentless storm, until the torrent faded out-his water elemental energy had been completely diminished.

"Holy crap," Vent muttered as he saw Helena's near-complete transformation, and scrambled out of the way. Hurricaune, however, began to laugh as more tornadoes repelled Matt's elemental attack until it was depleted.

She began to laugh, aiming her neck rotor. "Now, you little human brat, just what--"

The sudden roar cut her off, drawing her attention to Helena. "What in the world!?"

Helena leapt for the Psuedoroid, her wings snapping out mid-jump. She tackled Hurricaune and forced her down, and the dragon's jaws smashed into Hurricaune's chest armor, tearing through metal and circuitry.

Rotors in Hurricaune's hands began spinning and generating an electrified tornado even as Hurricaune screamed as the dragon began to maul her. The tornadoes shoved the dragon off of her, and she leaped up, into the center of the room.

"Damn you pests!" she screeched at them. "I'll put and end to this!"

Looking skyward, all of Hurricaune's rotors began to spin, and energy gathered in the cyclone that was beginning to form. Lightning blazed around its funnel, and soon, it was blowing back everything. And soon, blades of energy were being flung out everywhere thanks to Model H's power over wind and lightning.

"Damn!" Vent said, using the wall to get out of the way of the various, chaotic attacks.

Matt hit a wall of junk and felt a plank of metal wedge into his side. Damn! This wind was too powerful...even Helena was having a difficult time, struggling and snarling to approach. Matt looked up at the great cyclone, saw Hurricaune within it...maybe if he used a blast of rock, he could take her down.

Then a beam of concentrated fire erupted from Helena's jaws, with such sudden force that it cut through the windws toward Hurricaune, in a second before it was eventually overtaken.

Hurricaune cried out as the fire beam smashed into her, knocking her clear of the electric cyclone she had created, which now began to disperse now that the Wolveroid was no longer able to generate it. "Damn you!" she screeched at the three of them.

Vent aimed his Knuckle Busters at the Pseudoroid and began firing repeatedly, trying to hold her back. "Hurry up, Matt!" he yelled over his shoulder, continuing to keep the heat on the Pseudoroid.

Gritting his teeth, Matt raised his fist. "Fist of Gaia!" He punched the soft, wet earth, and in front of Hurricaune, a fist carved out of rock shot up like a rogue fishing line, angled upwards at her face.

As the beam rotors in Hurricaune's neck began to spin, readying to fire the blade beam, the Fist of Gaia struck, smashing into her neck and slamming her into a pile of junk with a pained cry. Taking advantage, Vent began to charge up one of his Knuckle Busters, and dash-jumped into the air, ready to smash Hurricaune's face in.

A pair of tornadoes caught him mid-flight and sent him sailing across the room, slamming him into a pile of debris opposite of the Pseudoroid, who was now pulling herself out of the mess. She was now looking worse for wear, having attained critical amounts of damage.

"I... am the Model H Pseudoroid," she growled, firing another blade beam at the Mega Man. "I won't... be defeated by the likes of a Mega Man!"

Helena prepared to leap again.

"Stay back," Matt said. "I'll get this."

And surprisingly, it worked, though Helena was still growling. Whoa. Neat. But back to the matter at hand.

"Don't worry!" Matt shouted at Hurricaune. "If you won't be defeated by a Mega Man, then I'll take care of it for him!" As he bolted toward Hurricaune, he focused his remaining stock of earth energy. Doing this sent a fiery aura of dull gold along his arm, spreading across and outlining his form.

Before Hurricaune could attack again, Matt seized her, near the waist so her neck saws wouldn't cube his face. With a great yell he leapt up high with the Psuedoroid, spinning about, until they both fell back down to earth, heads first.

"Seismic DRIVER!"

They crashed, blowing chunks of rock, dirt, and scrap metal through the air from the impact, and the rainstorm burst apart momentarily. Matt quickly leapt from the miniature crater he had made and waved to Helena, calming her down slightly.

Ah, great. His jacket was so filthy.

There was an awful sound of screaming metal as Hurricaune's head and neck smashed into the ground, shattering and destroying vital components. The force of the impact dislodged her body from Matt's grip, bounching away until she landed on her back, her long neck laid out and her eyes staring at the group. A trail of flowing oil on rain-slick ground stained her resting place, along with crushed debris. Her mouth opened and closed in a jerking manner, as if she was trying to speak.

"Hah... not bad..."

Vent was shocked that the Pseudoroid was still capable of talking, seeing her brutalized form. Hurricaune continued in a broken, jagged tone.

"Do whatever you want with the people in the next room... it won't matter anyway," she spat out, looking strangely triumphant. "Model W's awakening will still come to pass! Ahahaha!"

As she laughed, rays of light broke out of her damaged body, and the rain seemed to fall even harder. Light burst out in a shockwave, and explosions wracked her form until a gigantic wall of flame blazed from her body and consumed the room with light, and Hurricaune the Wolveroid was no more.

As the light cleared, all that could be seen was Model H, glowing and hovering where Hurricaune had been laying. "It looks like you've recovered the password and my power. I am grateful," he said. Vent opened his mouth, about to ask about the password.

However," Model H interrupted, as if knowing what Vent was thinking, "It will take time to reassemble the password into something you can use. Please be patient."

Vent nodded, holding out his hand as Model H floated over to him. Turning towards Helena, he looked uneasy.

"So, Matt, when did you plan on telling us about this?" he asked, referring to the dragon.

"I wasn't," Matt said, looking at the dragon, who was eyeing Hurricaune's revaged corpse. "But now you know and knowledge is half the battle. Anyway, I have experience wrangling with dragons, so she won't give you trouble."

He walked over to her and bent down, reaching out for her horns, drawing his hand back when Helena shied away. "Anyway, you should recover the hostages. I'll get Helena back to normal before we head back to base."

"If you say so," Vent said, still unsure. Keeping an eye on the dragon, he mounted the Knuckle Busters on the back of his armor, then turned away and approached the doorway opposite of which the three of them had entered. Opening the door, he stepped in and found himself in a short hallway. The door closed behind him, and Vent used Model FX's power over flame to dry all of the water off of himself.

He made his way down the hallway and entered the next room, most of which was split into a half-circular chamber. A center lock generating a flickering azure force field held the two halves of the cylindrical chamber in the center of the room together, and there were nearly a dozen people behind it. Vent's intercom chimed as Prairie contacted him.

"The people are in that room," she said. "You have to free them."

"Got it," Vent said, removing one of his Knuckle Busters from his back as he approached the center lock. Charging up the weapon, he slammed the Knuckle Buster against it using the thrusters to enhance the strike, causing the lock to blast apart in a small explosion. Immediately the force field came down, and the two halves slid back into the walls.

The people looked on at the Mega Man in amazement. Slowly, one of the people, a violet-haired Reploid, approached him. "W-we're saved!!!" he exclaimed, relief in his voice. "We were about to become Cyber-elves! Thank you for rescuing us!"

"'Become' Cyber-elves?" Vent questioned, giving the Reploid a strange look. "What are you talking about?"

"Those bad guys, they steal our memories and change us into Cyber-elves. They were also trying to scare us before we changed," the man explained as the others began standing up, helping each other off of the cold steel floor. "I saw them... I saw the others changing one-by-one into those Cyber-elves."

"So that's how they were able to create so many of them..." Prairie mused, disgust lacing her voice. "They're even crueler than I had imagined. We'll send the people back to town. Thank you for saving them, Vent."

One by one, the people in the room suddenly glowed white and disappeared as they were teleported from the room. Sighing, Vent thrust his hands out, and there was a flash of light as he demerged from the Biometals, which appeared in both of his hands. He stored Model X and Model F away with Model H, then began to wait for Matt and Helena to return.

Matt entered the room first. Helena followed, with a different set of clothes Matt had pulled out, and was straightening out her hair. It seemed like a big job, with how frazzled it wanted to be.

"Where's all the people?" Matt asked.

"The Guardians already teleported them out," Vent said, turning to them. There was a bit of an awkward silence, now that Vent knew of Helena's transformational abilities.

After a moment or two, he broke it. "Well, let's get going," he said, aiming a thumb over his shoulder at the back room beyond the cell. They made their way through it and the door set into the wall, which led to another Trans-Server.

Vent quickly filed a report in the Trans-Server, getting some Energy Crystals transferred into his account for his trouble. The intercom on the device activated. "Aile, R.D., and Hugo have already returned," Prairie said. "We finally have all six Biometal fragments. We must regroup and prepare. Head back to HQ."

"Got it," replied Vent. He cut the communication and readied the Trans-Server to teleport them out. Soon, they had returned back to the Trans-Server on the Guardian Base.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Helena said, without facing Vent or Matt. "I had a good reason for not telling you, I think, but you know what I mean."

"Eh..."

Vent shrugged. "I can see why you'd want to keep it a secret. It's just a surprise, that's all."

Opening the door, Vent exited the room and went into the hallway, making his way to the bridge. When he entered, he found Aile, R.D., Ileyna, and Hugo with Prairie, waiting for them. Ileyna's eyes lit up as she spotted Matt and Helena, and made her way over to them.

"You're back!" she said happily. R.D. looked over at Matt's filthy clothing, and noted Helena's frazzled appearance and changed outfit.

"You guys look like hell," he commented, ignoring the soot on his own clothing from the earlier battles at Area L. "What did you try to do, Matt, pick a fight with a junk yard?"

"Lemme guess," Hugo said, trying to restrain a chuckle. "The junkyard won, right?"

"Shut up, I just bodyslammed a Psuedoroid and I can do it to a Mettaur too if I'm so inclined," Matt remarked. He jabbed a finger at R.D.'s clothing. "And you're one to talk!"

"Well, at least all the Models are complete now," Aile said. "Now we can finally take Serpent down!"

Prairie nodded to that. "Good work. We've successfully recovered the content on the data disk you brought back from the research lab. It was left behind by Sis after all."

Sis? R.D. thought, turning towards Prairie. Strange. That word invoked... something in R.D.. Something tickling at the edges of his memory. He frowned as the dialogue continued. Sis...

Vent looked at one of the monitors on the bridge, browsing over the data that Aile had found really quickly. "Looks like a report on the Biometal," he said. "What was on it?"

"It describes Model W, Model X, Model Z... Everything about the Biometal," Prairie said, looking unusually serious as she nodded her head. "Including its true nature."

These words caught the attention of those present, especially Vent and Aile. Ileyna looked back and forth at the two of them, rather confused about what they were talking about. Prairie began to go into detail about it, and R.D. leaned against the wall, folding his arms. The word "Sis" was forgotten for the moment.

"In the war hundreds of years ago, there was a man who tried to conquer the world. In order to carry out his mad scheme, he created a giant battle station in space known as Ragnarok," she started. "He fused with Ragnarok, but he was
challenged by a hero and defeated. Ragnarok broke apart and fell through the atmosphere, burning brightly like a shooting star in the night sky. That image will be burned into my mind forever."

R.D. was confused by what Prairie meant. The war was over a hundred years in the past, yet Prairie witnessed it? What was she, some sort of immortal? No, he suddenly thought. A robot. What had Aile called them? Reploids? Maybe she's a Reploid. Whatever their confusion may be, it seemed Vent and Aile already knew what she meant.

Vent, in particular, looked ill as a realization came to him. "Then that means Model W is..."

"Yes, the soul of that man contained in a fragment of Ragnarok. That's Model W," Prairie confirmed. "Sis recognized its existence and set about to create something capable of fighting the threat. She used her research to create Biometal with the powers of legendary heroes from an age long ago. But that's not all."

"What do you mean?" R.D. asked, speaking up finally.

"There was some kind of message on it, too," Aile said.

"The message is to the chosen one," Prairie continued, looking at Vent and Aile. "In other words, the two of you. I'm going to play it back now."

Turning in her seat, Prairie entered a few commands into the console, causing the message to play. A young woman's voice, different from Prairie's, played for them to hear.

"Biometal Report Classification #555913 * Chosen One * This message is intended for the chosen one who will someday find the Biometal I have created. In order to fight against Model W, which has been causing the Maverick outbreaks, I have constructed Model X and Model Z with the data I have obtained on ancient heroes," the voice, whom R.D. presumed to belong to Prairie's "sis," explained. "There is still so much I don't understand... And I was forced to use the research on Model W as a basis for constructing the other two models. In other words, the ones with the potential to use Model X and Z, are the same ones with the potential to unleash Model W. As a chosen one, you have the power to save or destroy the world. I can only hope you use the power for good and that you will decide to guide the people to a bright future."

From there, the voice recording ended. Vent and Aile were both rendered silent by this. In fact, all of them were. What could anyone possibly say to that?

"The chosen one can decide their own path," Prairie said quietly, turning back to Vent and Aile. "They can become a hero, or they can control the world. That explains why Prometheus said you were one of them."

Edited by RisingDragon on December 8, 2008 at 19:02:07.

"My power is for protecting the people and ideals I care about," Aile said, her words almost menacing. "I refuse to be anything like Prometheus and the others!"

"This is gettin' deep," Matt said quietly to Hugo.

"Just like clockwork," Hugo muttered. "A bunch of stupid humans get their hands on something dangerous and try to take advantage of it. People like that need to learn."

Edited by The Helldragon on December 8, 2008 at 22:24:51.

Model X suddenly floated out of Vent's pocket, hovering between the two of them and glowing. "I'm relieved to hear you say that, Aile," he said to the two Mega Men. "It looks as if all of the passwords have been reassembled. With them, you can enter the ruins where the Model W Core lies."

"They've been digging and are probably close to the core by now," Vent said, suddenly growing alarmed. "We have to hurry!"

Prairie nodded. "You're right! I'll enter the mission data into the transerver right away! Vent, Aile, this is going to be dangerous. Be careful!"

"What about us?" Helena said. "We still need help looking for the Omega Essence!"

"Oh, yeah!" Aile bolted toward the door. "Prairie, you can give them whatever they need and help them look for the Essence! We'll be right back!"

"You don't need any help?" Matt asked.

Aile flashed a thumbs up. "We'll be fine."