Author's notes: You have to love that need to write self-indulgent fan fiction when you re-discover an old childhood franchise you enjoyed as a kid. And thus this, one of several one-shots, was born from that desire. I just kinda wanted to get it out of my head and had nowhere else to put it, honestly.
As expected, I feel the need to include the usual disclaimer here: Rockman and its many spin-offs is the intellectual property of Keiji Inafune, publishers, and companies. No profit is being made from this story, and no copyright nor trademark infringement is intended.
I hope you enjoy it!
Type: AU one-shot.
Rating: T (violence, etc)
Spoilers: If you haven't watched the movie, you might want to stop reading right here because this is literally comprised of nothing but spoilers for that.
Summary: Something unexpectedly goes wrong. Blindsided, Netto is left to deal with the consequences of Nebula Grey's defeat, just barely averting global disaster, and what it took to gain that victory.
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"Rockman! Rockman!"
Baryl, supporting Yuuichiro with a steady arm around his shoulders as he helped him shakily back to his feet, turned his gaze away from the black PET he had just turned off and moved closer to the source of the sudden noise that had caught his attention. A messy-haired boy had his own blue PET clenched tightly in his hands as he shouted at it.
"Netto-kun?" He asked. Netto looked up from his PET's floating display and the scene shown on its screen, not bothering to hide the frantic edge to his voice when he spoke. His brown eyes were wide and worried.
"I can't plug Rockman out!"
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Within the Netopian military base's cyberworld, the fused Netnavi's figure remained motionless, facedown in the silvery slime that covered the entire floor of the area.
Deaf to the chunks of Nebula Grey's crumbling core and the strange, marbled red wall crashing down into the lake of grey liquid surrounding him, deaf to the voice of Rockman's operator's voice, and completely overcome by the exhaustion-induced sensation that made it feel like all of their limbs had been filled with heavy, molten lead, they did not stir.
Unmoving, the man who had conspired to bring about the world's end for his own selfish desires, lied flat on his back a short distance away. Dr. Regal's ambitions were so much ash and dust now, visibly falling apart in front of him. His body nearly covered by the silvery slime, he stared straight up at the collapsing ceiling in a manner similar to a beached dead fish.
But the vengeful gleam within his eyes was very much alive.
"I'll take you with me," muttered Regal, his lips moving stiffly. His voice was potent with malice.
The bejeweled, metallic orb that had once floated at his side shimmered with a sickly, dark purple glow and shined intensely. A smokey black aura swirled around it and then, breaking free, burst forth from the sphere.
It sprung upwards with a roar towards the ceiling above, whirling into a screaming portal of smoke the color of bruises and darkness. Its maw greedily sucked up the falling chunks of rock into it, and yanked up the rubble that had already crashed into the floor as well. A high-pitched whining grew in volume from it.
The fusion of Rockman and Forte was not immune to its pull.
The force that the yawning black vortex exerted tugged relentlessly at the black NetNavi's still-motionless body. Slowly, surely, they were lifted free of the silvery slime and off the ground with the rest of the rubble. Their limbs dangled uselessly in the empty air below them like dead weights.
"Rockman!" Netto shouted fruitlessly at the screen, seeing their slack form floating higher and higher into the vortex. Standing behind him, his father and Baryl could only watch, unable to grant the boy their assistance. What on earth could they have done to stop it?
"Wake up, Rockman!"
He leaned in closer to the PET, sweat beading on his forehead as his voice desperately rose, louder and louder each time he called out his best friend's name. He pleaded, "Rockman!"
Dimly, something in his tone penetrated the deep darkness of unconsciousness.
Somewhere far away, the sound of Netto's racket reached them.
"ROCKMAN!"
The skin around the NetNavi's eyes wrinkled, then twitched as they made a soft noise, struggling back into awareness. An alert pair of eyes popped open. Their body curled and straightened back upright, tattered scarf fluttering lightly in the wind that whipped uncontrollably around them, and registered exactly what was happening to their surroundings.
Dazedly, their gaze turned upward towards the black hole looming closer and closer overhead. Countless bits and slabs of red rubble whooshed past them in their journey, drawn into the howling vortex, and tongues of electricity crackled and crawled through the air. Far below, the cyber area's floor was beginning to crumble.
This was a bad place to be.
The shared objective had been accomplished. It was time to leave. The navi mark on their chest began to glow, pulsing with light.
But the glow of their navi mark abruptly faltered.
It faltered and stopped.
Their eyes narrowed. Shoulders tensing, the NetNavi concentrated and a globe of bright light formed, swelling around them faster than the blink of an eye and enveloping their outline completely. Any possible vision was obscured from sight by the volume of it. Energy crackled to life.
What followed next could be described simply as an explosion of overpowering light and sound.
It swallowed the roaring darkness of the black hole, blasting away the large expanse of slime and the rubble. The catastrophic dome of imploding power also took out the majority of the ruined core that had remained standing, destroying the structure like it had been constructed from spindly toothpicks.
Among the confusion and chaos, a final burst of energy desperately flared up, sputtered and then went dead.
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. . .
LOGGING OUT. . .
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Blip.
"Rockman!" the Net Savior let out a relieved cry upon finally witnessing the familiar shower of data that indicated Rockman logging back into his PET.
Overcome by happiness, he immediately hugged the device against his chest tightly, reassuring himself. The memory of Rockman's limp body tangled in that writhing knot of wires, the note of selfless determination in Rockman's voice when he offered all of himself to Forte, the utterly hopeless sound of himself screaming as he begged for Forte not to go through with it, the Black Shadow's deranged grin as his hand reached out through the wall of cables towards his prize, was going to remain merely that once they all got out of here—bad memories.
Bad memories to be put behind them both.
"Let's hurry."
Baryl's voice briskly cut into his moment of joy.
Stowing the PET hurriedly away (Rockman must be completely exhausted after the ordeal he'd just undergone, and Netto didn't want to have the personal terminal out where he could lose his grip on it when he needed to move really fast in this sort of place) he nodded to Baryl and his father.
The chamber rumbled ominously.
"Yeah!" He agreed. After countless ambushes and brushes with danger, Netto had an instinct for knowing when you needed to get out of a place right now. Keeping pace best he could with Yuuichiro's weary trend, the boy and Barly walked out of the room that had once been held the server that was the core of Nebula Grey.
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Baryl did not come back with them.
He stays behind as the base falls apart around them, saying something about immortality and Colonel and Rockman, and Netto doesn't understand.
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They all watched in silence, the yellow life raft bobbing gently in the waves, as the old, destitute weaponry facility collapsed into ruins behind them. A series of violent explosions shook the small landmass. Massive pillars of black smoke rose up into the air above the sinking island.
Finally, Yuuichiro spoke up.
"The bequeathed program of Light and Darkness is gone."
As if a crushingly heavy burden had been lifted off his shoulders the man seemed to breath easier, even if his abused eye was still squeezed shut as he paused to look proudly at the boys sitting in the raft next to him each in turn. "Enzan-kun, Laika-kun, Netto…"
He smiled.
"Thanks to you, the earth has been saved. Thank you," Yuuichiro told them sincerely.
Laika lifted his chin upward slightly, clumps of green hair stuck to his forehead by sweat. Enzan only smiled wanly, paying no mind to the grime caking his jacket and wet pants from the falling debris he and the Sharoian Net Savior had been caught in the midst of. They'd both tracked enough of it into the floor of the raft when they shoved it off from the shore and then tumbled inside themselves.
Something was wrong.
Netto paused in the midst of his own cheer, frowning as he tried to put his finger what was... missing from the scene. Something wasn't there that should, by all rights, be there. Over the noise of the waves splashing against the raft, a quiet blip sounded from the PET in his pocket as if to call for his attention. Unnoticed by the other three in the raft, he pulled it out from where he'd stowed it away and held it in his hand.
His knuckles went white.
The NetNavi on the screen stared silently up at him, the green background of the PET's assorted programs running behind it, pinning him in place with its alien gaze.
"R—...Rockman?" Netto swallowed. Even before the words fully left his mouth, he had a gut feeling they were not going to be responded to in the way he wanted them to be.
Wordlessly, Forte Cross Rockman shook his head.
Netto felt like a cold, sickly sensation had just struck squarely him in the chest, caving it inwards and crushing his ribcage like an egg in its fist: he almost couldn't breathe.
The momentary quiet hanging between them was broken by Laikia's announcement;
"It's the relief team!"
Netto tore his gaze away from the screen, and glanced up uncertainly to look for what Laikia had spotted. Seeing the aircraft homing in on their location, he blinked slowly and clammered to his feet, waving his arms. Choking back the thick, miserable clot of emotions welling up in his throat, Netto cleared his throat. "It must be Commisseur Kifune!"
The boy yelled, attempting to make them a more visible target. He waved his arms, determined to show no hint of the turmoil currently roiling within his stomach.
"Commissioner Kifune!" He shouted, his voice carrying through the clear blue skies and the puffy clouds dotting the horizon. Inside the PET, the green eyes of Forte Cross Rockman watched him jumping up and down in the raft without commentary. "Manabe-saaan!"
With a quiet snort, he turned his masked face to the side and waited for the airplane to come close enough to safely swoop down and take them out of the ocean.