The underground robotics labs where Wily’s AI once operated unnerved Ciel greatly - dark, claustrophobic and she needed some help to move things around so she could work properly. It was all set up for remote operation by an AI. It reminded her of how inhuman Wily had become in his final days.

It had taken her a few hours on her first day to familiarise herself with the equipment - fortunately Dr. Light was able to modify the programs to have Inkling and Octoling translations for the user interfaces. It didn’t take long for her to realise what she had at her disposal - while mass production was basically out of the question for now since the facilities for mass production of robots and the Sanitized Octarians had been flooded, she could still use these machines to produce specific parts for specialised designs. And yet Wily had squandered what he had, failing to produce anything noteworthy after Zero.

She had wasted no time drafting up her first design. With access to X and Zero’s schematics and code-bases, Ciel saw enormous opportunity.

Of course, Ciel could have just made another humanoid robot, but that would’ve been too unambitious, even for a learning experience, and she wanted to save RiCO and iCO’s data for something special. Right now, she wanted to create a robot who could fill in for X as a protector now that he was focused on Arcadia. A compassionate warrior willing to fight to protect innocent lives, like Mega Man and X.

Of course, once the production of components commenced, Ciel needed to do something else to pass the time. So she started cleaning up the lab and reorganising it fully, with the help of the ‘Mega Man Killers’ and the Genesis Unit. While some of them weren’t adapting to reform quite so well, all of them seemed to be actually making an effort at it.

“I do confess, Doctor, I am intrigued by what you’re constructing,” Mega Water S said, looking over the schematics on the computer. “A brand new Robot Master with an animal theme. Those were quite rare back in the day.”

“Well, it wouldn’t make sense for me to create a human-like robot. And until I can create more lifelike sea creature designs, I decided this design made more sense for what I had in mind,” Ciel smiled as she rearranged one of the shelves. “She’ll be as strong as X and Zero.”

“Only they’d be able to keep her in check if she goes rogue, however. You are designing a robot with full free will, after all.”

“I used the test data from X’s capsule to better design her AI to act ethically and morally. She’ll have her own personality, but it should be fine.”

“That doesn’t guarentee anything, you know. Proto Man’s AI was made by Dr. Light, but he turned out very differently. And both Bass and Zero proved to be uncontrollable as far as Wily was concerned. You can’t take how she’ll act for granted, Doctor.”

Ciel spent a bit of time mulling over what he said, before Ballade suddenly came over with some kind of helmet-shaped device. “Doctor, I found this amongst Wily’s experimental gadgets. I had a hunch that you might find it interesting.”

“Thank you, Ballade,” said Ciel as she took the device, examining it closely. “Now what is this…?”

❖

Ahato Mizuta’s eyes fluttered open as she finally regained consciousness. She had no idea how long she had been adrift in a dreamless sleep.

But for the first time in so long, she felt more like herself again.

Looking down at herself in her hospital gown, she noticed her body still had signs of sanitisation, but it was much more patchy, with her natural, darker skin tone visible for the first time since she had undergone the process. Her fingertips had changed to a more natural blue, likely the ink colour her body was using at present. She had an IV drip inserted into one arm, and a tube with sanitised ooze slowly being extracted from her body in the other.

But most importantly, she didn’t feel like her mind was being controlled. And she could feel her own heartbeat again. She felt alive.

“Oh, you’re awake! How’re you feeling?”

Ahato turned her head to her right. Sitting by her bed were two Inkling girls, and behind them was X, who called out for the doctor. But she was most focused on the girls, who she swore she recognised. She didn’t recognise the casual everyday outfits, but the faces…

She spoke hoarsely in Inkling, “You’re… You’re the… Squid Sisters…”

Normally she would be absolutely over the moon about meeting them. She wanted to be way more excited, but she didn’t feel awake enough for that. So the best she could manage was a tired smile.

“The one and only! Stay fresh~!” Callie giggled, as the pair did their iconic hand gestures.

“Don’t worry about working yourself up to be excited on our account, Ahato, we know you’re still tired,” said Marie. “It’s been about a week since the doctors started pumping the ooze out of you. How do you feel?”

“More… Like myself, I guess,” Ahato said. “Is… Is it true? Is Telephone gone?”

“Gone twice over! We definitely made sure of that,” said Callie with a grin, “good riddance, too. X is in charge of Kamabo now… Well, now it’s ‘Arcadia Corporation’.”

“I’m taking the company in a better direction, now, and working towards fixing the harm Kamabo caused,” said X. “It’s going to be okay, Ahato. You’re already on the road to recovery.”

“Thank… You…” Ahato felt something wet on her cheeks. She was confused for a moment, but then she realised they were tears. How long had it been since she was actually able to feel her own tears? In fact, how many times had she cried since she was sanitised? She remembered it happened more than a few times, but the rest was a blur.

That’s when the Professor and his assistant came in, but also someone else Ahato didn’t recognise - an Inkling male in a lab coat, with orange eyes and slicked back hair with sideburns.

The Professor smiled, “good to see you’re awake and well, Miss Mizuta. Your vitals are encouraging, and we’ve removed over a third to a half of the ooze from your body. Cinnamon, if you would?”

The nurse fetched a mirror, showing Ahato’s own face to her. Her right eye was back to a normal purple, and the skin around it normal as well, but her left eye was still sanitised. “I know it’s probably not quite what you’re hoping for, but it’s an enormous improvement!”

Ahato couldn’t help but find herself agreeing. Her left eye was still a stark reminder of what she had gone through, but the fact that it was receding was a dream come true. It wasn’t even her appearance that bothered her all that much, either, it was having to make the agonising decision to lose her free will so she wouldn’t feel so miserable working for Kamabo.

But if the telephone was gone and she was on the surface at last? She was truly free at last. And the two people who had inspired her to try and make the journey here had come personally to welcome her. Words could not express her sheer joy.

“Hey, Professor, who’s this?” Callie asked, looking over the Inkling male.

“Oh, right, I hadn’t introduced you yet! This is Professor Julius Psyche, a colleague of mine at the university. His speciality is engineering, and his assistance was invaluable when it came to optimising the setup for the ooze extraction,” said Professor Gaudile, gesturing to the male.

“Yes, I wish I could stay longer but I’m afraid I have other places to be soon. Still, a marvellous pleasure to meet you three. You can also call me ‘Dr. Psyche’ if you’d prefer,” Psyche said as he shook hands with the Squid Sisters, and then X, pausing as he did so. “You’re X, then? Truly remarkable, were it not for my keen eye I would have trouble telling that you were actually a robot. I’ve heard you have some kind of arm cannon weapon?”

X nodded, changing his left hand into an arm cannon, “yes, that’s correct. This is my ‘X-Buster’, technically the Mega Buster Mark 17.”

“Marvellous… So powerful and yet so compact and elegant! Your creator was a true master of his craft! Oh, if only we knew more about human technology,” Psyche said, with a glint in his eye that unnerved Ahato greatly, but she wasn’t sure why.

“Well, perhaps some of it should remain buried,” said X, as his arm cannon changed back into his hand. “I guess I appreciate the compliment?”

“At any rate, good to see your recovery is going smoothly, Miss Mizuta. Now, if you’d excuse me, I must go,” Psyche said, as he walked out.

“He’s a bit odd, isn’t he?” said Marie.

“Oh, yeah, he’s definitely a bit of an oddball,” said Callie, turning back to Ahato, and taking her hand. It was so warm. She… She really liked it. “Anyway! We’ll try to visit as often as we can. Our schedules are still kinda packed, but…”

“No, I understand… Just making the effort is enough for me,” Ahato smiled, as she sat up against the pillow, taking it slow. She just let the tears of joy flow. “The both of you inspired me to try and make it to the surface. It took me longer than I thought it would, and I thought I’ve never make it. Just being here makes me so happy.”

Callie sniffed, tears welling up in her eyes as well. “Stop, you’re gonna make me cry as well…”

“Looks like you two are gonna get along swimmingly,” said Marie. A smirk formed on her face as she turned to her cousin, “hey, Callie, didn’t you say Ahato was cute?”

Callie’s eyes widened and her face became flushed. “N-Not in that way! She’s adorable, especially with the peek-a-bang thing she has with her hair-”

“-I think Octavio’s brainwashing has caused you to develop a thing for Octolings, cous.”

“Nooooooo I don’t you’re imagining things.”

Ahato couldn’t help but giggle at the banter. Being around people who cared about her… It just felt so nice.

❖

“So this helmet thing can transmit data into people’s heads, huh?” Ayane said, as she looked over the device Ciel had brought to the training room. She, Ethan and all the junior agents were here in one room, along with one of Dr. Light’s capsules.

“Indeed, it seems Wily was tinkering with the idea of transmitting his digitised mind into a new organic body… Whether it be a brand new one, or stealing someone else’s, I’m not sure,” said Dr. Light.

“Yikes, I don’t want to think about that,” Karlene winced.

“Well, I’ve made sure it can’t be used to just overwrite someone’s mind entirely,” said Ciel. “Instead, it can be used to transmit certain types of neural data into the brain safely. I’ve tested it on myself. Observe!”

She focused, and before Ayane’s eyes, she executed a Hadoken. Not a flawless one, but it was still bigger than the ones Orion was throwing. “I used the Anasatsuken data to test it!”

“Wait so we can learn Ansatsuken instantly?!” Artemis said, her eyes sparkling with glee, “I am so ready to do that!”

“It’s not that simple, you gotta spend some time developing the muscle memory for it first before you can actually master it,” said Ciel. “But it does make the process of learning it a lot easier. Don’t worry, it’s safe, the worst that can happen is that it just doesn’t work. You’re free to use it if you want.”

“Hey, not gonna pass up instant martial arts training,” Ethan grinned as he put the helmet device on. The lights on it powered on, and after a few seconds, Ethan froze up, but he relaxed when it powered down. “Oh wow that feels so weird.”

He took off the helmet, and threw a Hadoken of his own. Again, rather imperfect, but the fact that he could do it at all with such proficiency was astonishing. He handed the helmet over to Ayane. “Ayane, you should give it a shot.”

Ayane took a deep breath, and put it on. It powered on, and she felt her whole body go numb, if briefly, tingling from top to bottom, and the rush of information was so startling, but all of it swiftly subsided. She took it off, handed it off to Ciel, and focused - it was one thing to know the steps to achieve using her ki, but actually knowing intrinsically how to do it was another matter, which was why her resulting Hadoken fizzled out quickly. She threw a few punches followed by a few kicks. She and Ethan already had some martial arts training over the last two years, just in case, so she had better muscle memory for it. “Neat. I guess I know kung-fu.”

Artemis was next to do it (very eagerly in fact), followed by the rest of the agents. As expected, Orion’s first true Hadoken was the most well-formed. Artemis tried a hurricane kick and just ended up falling on her face.

“Absolutely awesome! Can’t wait to start sparring!” Liam grinned, as he started throwing punches.

“Well, too bad, we’re not doing that today. Maybe another time, or in your own time, but today is Charger practice,” Ayane said. “Everyone grab your Chargers and get ready to start sniping those balloons, I want to see all of you beat your best times by the time we’re done here today.”

There was a bit of grumbling, but the junior agents immediately got to it. Ciel said farewell and left with the capsule.

As Ayane watched the younger agents perform their specific time trials, she glanced at Ethan, who was watching beside her. “So. We going after that phantom thief?”

“Maybe. Dunno where we’d start, though,” Ethan shrugged.

“I’ve got something. Did some digging around - there’s an information broker rumoured to be the thief’s of intel on their targets - name’s Spider.”

“Not sure we have the cash to pay him, assuming he’ll sell to us at all.”

“He’s a card shark, he’ll give away info for free if one beats him at the table. We’ll go find him tomorrow night after our matches. You’re better at poker than I am, so…”

“Right, right, fair enough. Still, why are you so interested? It’s not like the thief has done anything real bad yet.”

Ayane sighed. “Marina and Ciel think the thief’s using a prototype Octarian special called a ‘Zipcaster’, meaning they’re probably an Octoling. If the public finds out that the criminal is an Octoling…”

Ethan took a moment to process this, and then winced. “Oooooohhhh. Okay, yeah, I get it. So you want to stop them before that potentially happens.”

“Look, if you don’t wanna do this, I can do it by myself.”

“No, it’s alright, I’ll help.”

“Okay. Good. Glad that’s sorted.”

There was an awkward pause for about a minute before Ayane decided to bring up the elephant seal in the room. “I’m not sure Marino is the right person to be your girlfriend.”

Ethan blinked. “What? Why? Is it because she’s older than me? You and I are both eighteen now and I think she’s like, what, a year or two older than me?”

“That’s not it.”

“You don’t trust her because she nearly killed me?”

“No, I think her apology was genuine. I don’t think she’s loyal to Octavio anymore.”

“Then why? Wait… You can’t seriously be jealous, are you?”

That set something off in Ayane, who turned to him, “don’t be ridiculous. Our relationship didn’t work out, and I’m at peace with that. End. Of. Story.”

Ethan turned towards her in turn, “then what is it? I believe you, but unless you can give me a good reason-”

“-I DON’T KNOW WHY, OKAY?!” Ayane snapped.

There was a stunned silence from everyone around her, including the junior agents, staring at her in surprise. That was the most emotional they’ve ever seen her. With a quick glare from her, they immediately went back to their training.

Ethan frowned. “Ayane…”

“Sorry, it’s just a feeling in my gut that I can’t really describe… I think… I don’t want to see you heartbroken again,” said Ayane, rubbing her arm awkwardly. “I thought we had something after Octo Valley, and then… The passion just wasn’t there. I don’t want you to go through that again. I know she’s hot and stuff, but if that’s all there is to her…”

“No, I get it, but I’m okay with taking that risk.” Ethan hugged her. “Thanks for looking out for me, Ayane.”

Ayane blushed, hugging him back, “y-you’re welcome.”

Then she noticed some of the trainees staring at them, and she did the glare again, causing them to urgently get back to sniping. Now she just felt embarrassed, she didn’t mean to get so emotional around the juniors.

But ultimately, at the core of it was that she just wanted Ethan to be happy. Maybe it was because he was like a brother she never had. Either way, she’d make sure he wouldn’t be let down again.

❖

“Seriously, any idea what THAT was about?! I’ve never seen Ayane get that worked up!” Artemis said, as she walked along with her dorm-mates back to their dorm.

Iris had been rather startled too at the time. Ayane being anything other than kinda stoic was a bit of whiplash for her. Guess she just kept her emotions close to her chest.

“Apparently she and Ethan used to date, but it didn’t work out. It was kind of a big story in the competitive scene,” said Karlene as they reached their dorm, and she took out her key, unlocking the door.

Iris sighed. “I’m sure they would’ve made a cute couple, but I understand if they’d rather see other people.”

“Speaking of cute couples… You saw Orion and Axl holding hands, right? They’ve been doing it since yesterday,” said Hinata with a giggle as they went in.

Iris wasn’t really convinced that meant a lot. “They’re just holding hands, though…”

Artemis chuckled. “Eh, I can believe my brother’s gay. He’s never had any interest in girls, and was always kinda awkward around other guys. Guess it took Axl to open up the closet. I’m happy for him.”

“You should know, you’re pretty gay yourself,” Karlene smirked. “You were blushing like crazy after you had your head on Iris’ lap.”

While that got Artemis blushing, Iris couldn’t help but feel flustered as well. She was still not used to having that kind of attention - the lap thing was something she thought was fairly innocuous, but apparently Artemis had very different thoughts.

Artemis tugged on her collar, “I mean, I didn’t really expect it, and… Look, I’m not gonna beat around the bush, Iris is… Attractive! Very attractive.”

“You mean ‘sexy’,” Hinata grinned.

“I’m trying to be polite about it, Hinata!”

Artemis made eye contact with Iris… And then suddenly bowed, as if she saw something in Iris’ look that made her panic. “I’msorryI’msuchapervert!”

“I wouldn’t go that far, Arti,” Karlene chuckled. “It’s not like you’ve been peeping on her or anything…”

Iris was paralysed. She had no idea what to say. Did… Did Artemis like her in… That way? For real?

And then Colonel only made her panic more by suggesting, you should ask her out on a date.

WHAT?! A DATE?!

You’re never going to release the tension in this room unless you bite the bullet and ask her out. You know you’ve had a crush on her ever since you two first met.

At first that sounded ridiculous… Until she recalled the first time they had met. When Artemis pulled her off that ladder and up into the sunlight. That gesture of kindness had resonated with her far more than she had realised.

“So… Um…” Iris rubbed her arm, “Artemis… Would you like to… Um…”

Artemis looked confused for a second, but then apparently she realised what she was asking, because she was now red in the face. “Well, I wouldn’t… Uh… Mind…”

“Oh for the love of cod just ask each other out on a date already,” Karlene groaned.

“Okay fine!!!” Iris blurted, “Artemis, please go out with me sometime!”

Artemis was stunned silent. But she smiled, and walked over to Iris, kissing her on the cheek. “Sure. I’d love to, Iris.”

Iris nearly lost consciousness then and there. But she held herself together, looking down at the floor nervously, “w-well, we could go to that burger place again…”

“I’ve heard of worse places for a first date. I’m down.”

On one hand, it was an absolute relief for Iris to finally get that off her chest.

On the other hand… This was more nerve-wracking than any battle she had ever fought. And that was saying something.