Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Megaman.EXE or any aspect of the games. This right belongs to Capcom alone. For those of you who may make the connection, I also do not own the rights to Yan or Incognito from the anime series Hellsing.

A/N: This story is actually a side-story to a much larger set of stories, entitled Saving GameFAQs. It's a prequel of sorts, telling the history of one of the more mysterious characters, Yan Incognito…

The year is 33XX…

Years have passed since the time of MegaMan.EXE and Lan Hikari. Relative peace and order has been established on the Net and in real-world society. Navis have evolved to a state where they are almost human; they breathe, eat, sleep, bleed. NetCrime is nearly non-existent. All in all, a near-utopian society has been formed. This perfect society, however, is about to change…

On August third, 33XX, a young boy, sitting in his room, hunched over a computer in a tangle of wires large enough to rival the Amazon, hears the phone ring in his kitchen. With his normal, happy-go-lucky attitude about him, Zean pulled of his goggles, attempted to fix his incessantly frazzled reddish-brown hair and trotted to answer the call.

Two rings. Perhaps it was his parents? He hadn't seen them for a few days now… they were vacationing at the beach. Imagining, Zean saw his parents having the time of their lives. His father, Kintaro, would probably be somewhere near the water. He had always loved it; in his youth, he was an avid surfer and swimmer, and even grew up in a beach house. The sun would be gleaming off his thinning hair, the same color as Zean's, only a little gray around the edges. His mother, Geia, would probably be relaxing under a beach umbrella, either reading one of her favorite novels or sleeping soundly. Without the tan, Mediterranean complexion of the rest of the family, she tended to burn easily. Although she loved the sun, she rarely got out in it, and-

This daydreaming could have gone on for hours, had the third ring of the phone not interrupted. One misstep was all it took to send Zean tumbling down the stairs in a heap, right in front of the phone. One final ring. It was now or never. Had Zean known what awaited him on the other end of the line, he would have chosen the latter.

"Hello, is this the Aberholden residence?" wheezed a tired voice on the other line. Signs of age showed in his tone.

"Yes, Zean speaking. May I ask who's calling?" Zean had always been an incredibly polite boy, almost to a fault.

In this world, nothing can be as deadly or ominous as silence. Silence is unfaltering, does not waver, and does not give any clues as to what may or may not happen. Silence is true fear embodied and packaged into brief, horrendous moments of our life. This was one such silence, during which the entire world and everything on it nearly ceased to exist. Zean heard his heartbeat, his breathing…

Finally, the voice crackled to life. "Zean, I don't know how to say this, so I'll just say it. Your parents… are… they're gone, Zean. They were killed in a MetroLine accident, near their vacation home. I'm sorry, I know this is…"

The rest of the man's words were worthless, trailing over the phone line and bouncing off Zean's psyche like rubber. Gone? Dead? That can't be right. It just can't be right. It wasn't happening. Not to him. It couldn't be happening… thoughts of denial raced through Zean's head as the receiver dropped soundlessly to the carpeted floor.

"Hello? Hello, are you there? Zean…?"

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The clock struck once… twice… three times, and continued until the tenth chime. Zean had long since fallen asleep in a flood of his own sadness. The night had been a restless one, plagued with tossing and turning. Then, the unthinkable happened. A bolt- not lightning, but a purplish glowing bolt from the heavens –struck a power line outside of the Aberholden residence, cutting all the power in the house. As if haunted by a specter, the computer sprang to life. Bits of data ran across the screen, numbers that seemed senseless and random to the common eye. Zean was wide awake and horrified, staring blankly at his monitor, hoping that this was all a grief-induced nightmare.

Miracles do not have to be an act of stunning kindness or an impossible feat or even happy at all. Miracles are merely there, and whether we believe them to be miracles or not is a matter of choice. They may seem unbelievable, and perhaps even a bit evangelical, but in any case they are there. If you acknowledge them, then you can reap the benefits; ignore them, and they become a simple occurrence, strange, but forgettable.

One could say it was a so-called miracle when Zean found his own steely gaze matched by an equally icy stare. The computer monitor had been filled with the upper half of a NetNavi, one with a muscular frame and a spiked plate on his left shoulder. His body was relatively normal, but what could be seen of his face beneath his sleek helm and above his mask was enough to characterize his entire appearance. His eyes were totally unnerving, sending a shiver down Zean's spine. There must have been an error in the programming. Perhaps the bolt of energy had sparked the incomplete customization process from earlier in the day to life.

Whatever it was, there was no denying the fact that the eyes of the Navi were totally, utterly crimson.