Chapter 2: Task at hand

Author's Notes: Sorry about chapter 1, little bit on the dry side I thought. Then again I separated this chapter and the last because I thought together it was too long, hopefully you'll like this one a lot better and thank you for the reviews…even though I received none :( Please review

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Rockman series, including any characters that are mentioned (if they are at all), this goes double for similarities for any real life people or organisations. However I do hold the rights to Gadget, Graham and any characters that I mention (which are created by me), etc.

Story: "Ground Floor" The elevator announced as I stepped out into the street, my modern looking trainers made a soft clattering sound as I stumbled over the metal threshold of the elevator. My face reddened but I quickly shook the embarrassed feeling away as I looked around expecting to see flying cars, robots walking the street or at least a cyborg…but there was nothing "Aww man! What a swizzle!" I mutter under my breath as people passed by. I groaned as I walked down the street remembering what Mr Gordon had told me "In order to pay for your freezing process you must serve with the net police until your debt is paid in full".

"I can't believe I have to work," I grunt as I hail a taxi and fail.

"Well no-one paid the account for 800 years, so it's understandable really." Gadget reminded me as the Pet rang "Graham I've just received an email, we need to go to Chime Street. There's is a net crime in progress."

"Excellent!" I exclaim as I began to run through the crowd of people. "Guide me to the place Gadget," I order her as I turn a corner.

"I am not property; if you use the magic word then maybe I'll help." Gadget said smoothly, folding her arms. I stopped speechless in my tracks as I scratched my head, letting out a big sigh of defeat "Would you please guide me to Chime Street Gadget?"

"Certainly, take your next left" Gadget responded as I took off again, I took heed of her directions as she called them until I went into auto-pilot mode while I ran the questions through my head "Wow, I can't believe I'm actually in the future but what is up with this navi? Am I safe now? I wonder what a real net battle is like?". I grinned as I repeated the last statement in my head over and over again until the harsh tone of Gadget broke my concentration "Hey! We're here". I snap back to reality as I scan the area and notice an ATM machine. I grin wildly as take the PET from the holster and then raise the PET up like a handgun and I open my mouth to shout Gadget's arrival into the system, but a red laser shot out of the PET and hit the sensor on the ATM before I could get a word out.

"Gadget! I was supposed to plug you in! I'm your net op!" I shout angrily as she appeared on the PET screen.

"Ah quit your bitching. And for the last time I am not your property so get used to it." Gadget responded as she stuck her middle finger up in front of her visor, ensuring that I could see the action via the video link transmitting from her helmet to the PET. I simply turned red as some people walked past; I instantly turned the internal speakers on the PET down so that the passers-by could no hear my own net navi giving me lip.

"Fine. Let's just do our job," I said quietly as Gadget loaded up a few green pop-up windows in front of her. I watched with interest as she scanned through the data, taking the data from a few windows and feeding them into her memory and closing other windows. "I am trying to locate the intruder by the way" Gadget said firmly "I know you were wondering and were dieing to ask."

I turned an even darker shade of red then I had done before "Why can't you just go through each security level and gain battle experience points?" I asked as my face returned to normal colour.

"Gee, now why didn't I think about that? It's so simple. I could just manually explore all 640 levels of the bank's security on my own before the intruder gets away," Gadget responded sarcastically as a red dot appeared on one of the windows "The intruder is on level 354; the banks' transaction system." I nod as Gadget proceeded through the system, I just watched via the PET link, dieing to operate her as she deleted various random weak viruses with her attacks. I studied Gadget each time she attacked, her main attack seemed to be called 'Gadget Gears', she snapped off her cog wristbands and thrown them at the enemy, which in turn slashed them in two before acting as a boomerang and returning to her hands. Her secondary attack seemed to be called the 'Gadget Gatling Gun', this weapon that morphed in place of her right hand struck an amazing resemblance to a 3 barrelled mini-gun, however her gun looked more high-tech. I watched open-mouthed as she went through the horde of viruses like a knife through hot butter; I monitored her statistics through the PET as they steadily rose. I also noticed that each virus delete was slower then the last and that each breath, each step, each reload was lagging behind the previous.

"Hey Gadget, are you ok?" I asked with a tone of worry in my voice as she replied with a thumbs-up gesture. I watched via the live video feed as she approached the 640th level. Gadget looked around the area until she noticed a rather large brake in the firewall around the back. I noticed that the hole in the firewall looked hot, Gadget spat on the mark but her spit evaporated before it came close to the cut.

"Well I never," Gadget muttered as she walked cautiously through the hole, which was big enough for two of her on each other's shoulders to walk through.

"Who do you think caused it?" I say flatly as she switched the camera to 3rd person and stared at me coldly "How the hell am I meant to know? Do I look like Psychicman?" Suddenly the area flashed red and sirens stared to blare as a metal door appeared over the hole that Gadget came through.

"What the hell?" We exclaimed in Unison as a shockwave surprised the both of us and knocked Gadget on her back a good 5 meters away from where she was standing. A tall orange armoured navi stood on the opposite side of the room, his gold jumpsuit reflected with the flash of the emergency lights this made his hands, full face helmet complete with face-guard and feet were almost invisible because of the crimson metal they seemed to be made of.

"Who are you?" Gadget scowled as she slowly got up and formed her Gatling gun, ready for battle.

"I am Ironman. And you, you stupid little girl have sealed us both in here!" The male navi roared as he punched the ground, sending out another shockwave, however this time Gadget was ready but barely managed to evade, covering her ill-prepareness almost perfectly as she landed smoothly and fired a few rounds of her Gadget Gatling Gun, "Oops. Sorry," Gadget shouted over the shots in a very sarcastic voice that would make Jim Cary roll over in his grave. I watched stunned as Ironman became embedded in a cloud of debris from the wall behind him and the shots that he took, "You've got him!" I cried out happily as a smirk appeared on Gadget's face. The smoke died down to reveal an unharmed Ironman, Gadget's face fell as Ironman dusted off the debris from the wall and then crossed his arms over his chest, Gadget withdrew her gun and started to go for her gears.

"Gadget! Look out!" I shouted, but it was too late, the tired female navi had already been hit with the powerful laser that emitted from Ironman's icon on his chest. Ironman laughed manically as he walked over to the smoking heap on the floor which is Gadget. I frantically hit the controls on the PET, trying to gain manual control over Gadget but each time resulted in a red 'Error' message "Gadget let me operate you!" I cried out as I fumbled through the spare pocket on the PET holster, hoping to find something, anything which may help.

"I'd rather be deleted," Gadget responded unemotionally as Ironman picked her up with his left hand by her helmet, she groaned in pain as Ironman ran his index finger softly over her face.

"Such a shame to waste something so pretty…but as you wish," Ironman responded coldly as he morphed his right hand into a rather sharp blade, Gadget winced at the sight and tried to look away, but Ironman held her head firm, forcing her to look at her own horrified reflection in his mask.

"Bye bye baby," Ironman said in a mocking tone while moving his blade backwards slowly, ready for the kill.

"Battlechip. LongSword, Slot in!" My voice boomed over through the cyber-area as Gadget slashed her new shiny metal blade through the arm that was connected to the hand that was holding her in the air. She dropped to the floor surrounded by the pixels as they disappeared that used to be the lower left arm of Ironman, accompanied by a clank as a solid piece of data hit the ground of the cyber-area next to her.

"I-Impossible!" Ironman exclaimed as the recoil of the attack pushed him a few steps backwards. Ironman then glanced at the stub which used to be his left arm as data streamed slowly out of the dismemberment then glared at Gadget "I'll get you next time Gadget! Just you wait!"

A robotic voice sounded out as the large orange net navi disappeared in a flood of pixels 'Ironman Logging Out'.

"Dammit! We didn't arrest him!" Gadget exclaimed out of breath, kneeling on all fours, noticing that the back-up security navis had arrived and released the security system so that they could get in "Amateurs, you let him go…" Gadget choked out before she was manually logged out.

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