Connected Hearts
The Crossing
Silver: Chapter 4 revised! there's very little to change in this fic like:
"Blah" – talking.
"Blah" – Sora, Rockman and Axl's link, sometimes Mother talking.
"Blah" – Net Navis are speaking to their NetOps who are in CF forms
Silver: Also, while in CF form, they will be called as CF and their navi's name. But they can call one another by their real names. XD! Enjoy!
(Disclaimer: Again, I do not own MM Battle Network or MMX, if I do; all the characters are gays and lesbians XD)
The Crossing
"Rouge Chain!(1)" the cross fused form of Sora and Rouge shouts, as she threw the tip of her red blade chain to the enemies destroying a row of them, while CF Blues tries to break the door. CF Searchman shoots his enemies with his Scope Gun, CF Blues repeatedly hit the door with Paladin Sword but it couldn't make a dent or a scratch on it.
"Kuso..." CF Blues swears as he hits the door again and again, until CF Rouge came up with a suggestion. "Maybe the door is protected by a strong firewall…" she suggested.
CF Blues thought it was a silly idea, but CF Rouge told him to switch places with CF Searchman. So both boys switched places and they found out that she's right, there is a firewall protecting the door. 'Dang, are those nitwits are getting smarter each day?' CF Searchman thought sourly, as he scans the firewall's weakness.
It took him a moment to find the weak area and shoots it, it makes a cracking sound and breaks down. They quickly dash inside the warehouse, there are viruses blocking their way but that didn't stop them. Several Metools charges at them, only to retreat when the red swordsman uses the Wave Chip to back them off. Both shooters in the team shoots down flying viruses, which swooped down and attempted to hit them.
"Outta the way! Outta the way!(2)" She shouts as she deleted several viruses with her R-Buster on her left arm. She then back flips when a Aqua Tower nearly hits her, and uses her chain on a fish-type virus. CF Searchman is shooting some of his side, while CF Blues uses Sonic Boom on a group of jellyfish-like viruses.
They manage to move into a new area, where inside there are more viruses that attacks them on entering.
"In here!" CF Blues shouts, spotting a metallic door and he kicks it open. The two dives in and CF Blues quickly shuts the door tight, before backing off when the viruses made some dent on it.
"Well, that was eventful." CF Searchman said, somewhat sourly, as he help CF Rouge stand up.
The three looks around and finds themselves in a long, dim-lit hallway, which either be a good or a bad news for the team. Looking at one another, the Cross Fused Sharo agent takes up the front guard while the two watches their backs. They carefully make their way thru the hall, while keeping an eye behind them. It didn't take long for them to reach the end of it. They see a slightly open door and they stand beside the wall for cover. The sniper pokes his rifle in and carefully opens the door... nothing happen. He looks at the two, who nods back at him and they swiftly enter the place with their weapons out.
Nothing...
Seeing that the room seems safe, they examine the place they're in. The room is full of computers, some cable wires, the stolen goods and a weird circular machine on a concrete wall. It looks like a portal converter like the ones they usually show in sci-fi movies or series, on the top is a rectangular shape box-like contraption. The three finally found what they are looking for, but they have no idea on what they are making with it. So CF Rouge and CF Blues are checking some computers, while CF Searchman stares at the machine as if he had a bad feeling that something worse is going to happen.
"Does anyone have an idea what this is for?" the Sharo agent asked, breaking the silence and points his thumb at the machine.
"No clue... The data in this computer is blank." the red swordsman replied, as he moves to the next computer to check it's content.
"Same thing on the other computers" the brunette point out.
"Do you think it's a trap?" Rouge asked, thru her and Sora's comm link.
Suddenly, the firewalls came out of nowhere and blocks their only way out and the machine hums to life.
"What the?" CF Blues shouts, when a strange white void formed within the circular machine. But before the three Net Saviors could even think of hacking the firewalls, the computers in the room turns itself on and a shadowy figure appeared on the screen. That person laughs evilly as it said... "Sayonara, Net Saviours"
"Whoa!" CF Searchman yelped, and immediately holds on a pipe on the wall. The two also grabs on the pipes or the railings that are attached to the wall or the ceiling, as the void began to pull them in.
"We have to do something!" CF Rouge shouts frantically, as she hangs on the railing tightly. Then CF Blues saw the rectangular shape box is glowing and took a wild guess that it's the engine of the machine. "Laika! Aim for the box on that thing!" he shouts, as his other arm took form of the Variable Sword.
Unfortunately, it is every difficult to aim on the box if you are fighting against a strong vacuum that will suck you into your doom. Not to mention that every attack they throw was either hit something else or pulled into the void, instead of hitting it's target. "Darn it!" the Sharo Net Saviour cursed, when one of the computers block his shot, hitting the machine at the side.
And it got worse...
The three screamed as the void's power grew stronger and they are hanging for dear life. The navis are panicking and immediately sends out a distress signal to the SciLab but...
"Laika!" CF Rouge shouts, as her teammate lost his grip on the pipe and is sent flying towards the void. Mustering a bit of courage, she let go of the railing and flew straight to her comrade.
"Gotcha!" she said, then quickly grabs a broken metal rod and stabs it on the ceiling. "Quick, hold on to this!" He did what she said but something hit her fully on the face, causing her to lose her grip in the rod and CF Searchman.
She is pulled into the void.
"SORA!" the two boys shouts, as the engine of the machine overheats and exploded. Smoke covered the whole warehouse and the virus disappears as the Dimensional Area breaks. Soon the smoke cleared, there's a hole on the roof, the Dimensional Area is gone... and so is Sora and Rouge.
:::^*^:::
At SciLab...
They received a distressed signal from the Net Saviour and is about to send help when...
Yuuichiro and Rockman stood frozen in place, staring at the screen as Sora's tracking signal disappeared from it. It took them a full moment to realize that Sora is in danger or worse deleted or killed, Yuuichiro quickly flips the communicator on and tries to call his daughter.
"Sora! Can you hear me?" Yuuichiro shouts at the microphone, but all he got was the hissing sound of the radio. The sound he denies and frantically readjust the frequency. "Sora! SORA!"
And Rockman can only stand there in silence... and falls to his knees as tears form in his eyes.
He lost another sibling.
:::^Machina Domain^:::
Axl is at the roof top, star-gazing again but this time a shooting star appears, streaking thru the night sky. Despite that it's very childish to wish on the shooting star, he still made a wish and clasps his hands together. 'I wish... I could see my friends and my family again, especially Saito and Sora... even if it's just once... just once.' the auburn teen thought, then the alarms went off and he runs back into the base for the mission.
:::^*^:::
Groaning, she shifts from her position to get comfortable and falls off the couch.
"Ow!" she yelps as she sits up from the floor. "What hit me?" wincing as she pulled the blanket off her and massages her head. Looking around, she finds herself in a rather futuristic room, with her boots and coat near the couch. At first she's a bit clueless on how she got into somebody's house, and then she tried to find her PET... only it is not with her.
"Rouge!" she calls, no answer. "Rouge! Where are you?!" as she grabs her coat and hops a bit as she puts on her boots. As she about to look for her missing partner, an old man appears from the kitchen and nearly startled her.
He may look old but his memories are still sharp for one thing. "Sora." He said casually and she is stunned. Despite meeting him a few time during the Duo Incident, she still remember him despite looking... old.
"Oh my... Barrel? You're alive!?" Sora shouts in joy of reuniting with a missing friend, as she gave the elder a hug. "And old!" She added. The "old" Barrel(3) chuckled at her last comment. He maybe that old as a grandpa and got himself a white hair and baggy wrinkles, but he can never forget the granddaughter of Tadashi Hikari who fought with other Cross Fusion members to save their home world from Dr. Regal and Duo.
"Sora!" a voice shouts from the kitchen and the brunette looks inside it. There, on the counter, is her PET charging on a makeshift adaptor and Rouge seems to be talking with Colonel EXE in his Progress PET. "You're up!" she cheers.
"Rouge!" She carefully walks around the elder, as she heads to her PET and is happy to see her partner alright. "It's nice to see you too, Colonel." she added, as the said black navi nods at her in greetings.
"Are you okay?" her navi asked.
"Yeah, just a bit of a migraine though."
"Here." the elder places a cup of tea on the table as he sits down. "This will calm and soothe your pain."
She thank him as she takes her seat on a old but stable stool. Once she takes a drink to calm her nerves and the throbbing head. "Barrel, where are we?" Sora asked.
"Ah... the better question, child, how did you and your friend get here?" he turns the question back, which made the brunette look at him weirdly. "What happen to you before you got here?" he simplified.
"Well… My friends and I got a mission and went to Sharo, to retrieve some government equipment that was stolen." she recalls her last mission. "There are so many viruses on the single warehouse, but we manage to delete some of them and search the area for the said items. But it turn out... that place was a trap, so we tried to get out and…" as memory of some junk hitting her on the face and knocking her into the void. "Oh my gosh…! I GOT SUCK INTO THAT VOID!" she suddenly screamed as she stands so fast that she knock the tea all over the table.
"I see... Sora, calm down." Barrel said, placing a hand on her arm to calm her. She looks at him and breathe out before sitting down again, while the elder takes a rag and cleans up the spilled tea.
"Ummm... Where are we anyway?" The brunette asked, as much as she is happy to meet the elder, she really wants to know where she is now.
Looking around, she saw a lot of things that are out of this world… For instance, the furniture looks too futuristic (even the old stool she's sitting on), there are hovercrafts or flying cars that are passing by the kitchen window like the ones shown in sci-fi shows. She stands and look out of the window, only to meet tall and massive buildings, she guessed that she is probably about a hundred feet away from normal ground. She would find this all exciting if it weren't for the smoke and the fire on one of the the top of the buildings, in the distance. Not to mention that there are people in armors that are fighting one another with lasers, and some are rescuing civilians in the burning building. 'This looks like a scene out of a bad cyber-punk movie.' she thought.
"Sora, you are in a parallel world, a different dimension." the elder explains. He thought that it's the best to tell her the truth, so she can cope on the situation clearly.
"In a what?" Sora asked, looking at him with wide eyes. 'Another world... again?' she thought.
"You mean we're like in Beyondard or something like that?" Rouge asked, her small hologram appearing out of her PET.
"I see that the PET have improved..." the veteran soldier smiled a bit, before returning back to topic. "Have you experience traveling to another world?" he asked them when he notices that the girls are not that too surprise. Both girls nodded and he finds breaching the subject is going to be a bit easy. "Yes, somewhat like that, Rouge." as he looks out of the window the girl is looking out. "What you see is a different world, far advance in machinery and it is much more chaotic than our home. Also in this world, Net Navis does not exist." Barrel explained, and both girls look at him with shock.
"Then... how did the people survive without the Net Navis?" the brunette NetOp asked.
"There are being called Reploids, they are androids who can feel emotions and can think and learn on its own. Think of them as navis in a durable, physical bodies."
"Sentient robots? That's quite awesome." the brunette in awe and curious of this world.
"But aren't those dangerous?" the female navi asked, remembering the movie called I Bot. It's a movie about a detective are beginning to doubt about the robots, and began to think that they will kill the human race since they will think that they are superior. Plus their past experience with the CopyBots...
"Rouge, we've been fighting viruses and bad navis that were materializing in reality. This is no different."
"Well, yes and no." Barrel said. He began to explain the world that the two landed in, and they discover that this world has some few similarities to her own. It only takes them about a few hours for both Sora and Rouge to understand the situation, then Barrel stood up and re-entered his room to get his bag. "Here." He said, tossing out one and landed near her feet causing her to jump a bit as she removes her PET from the charger.
"What?" Sora asked, picking up the bag and began looking what's inside of it. In the bag are food, a modified PET and battle chip chargers, some disks, first aid kits and some stuff she couldn't see below.
"We need to go... we're in a dangerous part of this city, there are stray mavericks roaming around in this area." Barrel said, picking up his PET and his bag.
"Okay..." Sora said, still unsure on her new adventure. But it's better to run than to fight against those mavericks, which Barrel said, without the Dimensional area. As soon as they are out of the old apartment they were staying, they began to climb the stairs, take a train ride and rode on some elevators to get to the top part of the city. The fact the Barrel is a senior allows him and her (often mistaken as his granddaughter) to pass or to cut in line quickly.
But...
"Sora! Get down!" Barrel shouts, as he pushes her down on the ground and a stray plasma shot nearly hits them. He then got up, tells her to stay down and runs to the area to see what it is.
"Ow... take note: take dodge ball again to learn how to dodge." She said sourly as she got up, rubbing her sore spot a bit. Ignoring what Barrel told her, she follows and spots him with a pair of mavericks surrounding him.
"Alright, give us that program, old man." One of the mavericks demanded, as he points his buster at the old colonel, right on the face.
"Barrel!" Sora shouts and runs to him only to be caught as a hostage.
"Why don't we rephrase that... Give us the program now or this girl will die." The other said, as he places his beam dagger on her throat. The brunette sweats a bit as she feels the heat from it.
This cause Rouge to panic. 'Argh! I can't even save her' Rouge thought, as she tries to think of a good plan. 'Dang it, there are time I hate being a stuck in here!'
"If you let her go, I'll go with you." Barrel spoke calmly, causing the young girl to stare at him with shock as the two maverick thinks it over.
'Barrel! What are you doing?!' the brunette thought frantically as the two decides to agree on Barrel's condition. And so they threw the girl into a dumpster and drags the old man to the truck.
"Barrel!" Sora shouts, as she scrambles to get out and go after the truck. But by the time she got out of the dumpster, the truck is far from her reach and disappear behind a turn. "Dangit!" she swears as she kicks the dumpster she fell in.
"Sora!" her navi appears, trying to calm her frustrated partner and to see if she's injured. Once the brunette cools a bit and seems okay, she notices something. "Sora, why do you have two bags?"
"Huh?" confused, she looks at herself and finds Barrel bag with her. 'How?' as she remembers the stray shot and he pushed her down to evade it. "Wow, for an old timer, he still got skills." as she opens his bag and rummages thru his stuff. 'Please be with him, please be with him... darn it.' she thought.
Her pleas have not been answered, as she found Colonel EXE's PET in the bag. If the elder had held on or pocket his PET, he would have a bit of advantage by hacking.
The military navi senses somethings wrong and appears in the screen. "Sora?" he asked, wondering what's going on.
"I'm sorry, but the mavericks got him." Sora answered and the black navi is shock by this. "But don't worry, we'll get him back. We need to follow that damn truck. " She then looks around and saw a strange-looking motorcycle, or hover-bike near a bar. Ignoring the fact that she can't drive, she hops on the vehicle and wonders how to turn it on.
'Now what...' Sora thought, she is clueless on how the bike works and if she can ride this without crashing to something with this futuristic vehicle. Then an idea hits her and mentally slaps herself. 'My Navi!' she thought.
She took her PET and plugs Rouge in. "Rouge, can you start it up?" Sora asked.
"Are you sure you can drive this?" her partner asked skeptically, as she know that the brunette stinks on driving.
"We need to catch up to that truck and save Barrel, quick." she firmly stated, then the vehicle hums to life and floats a little. "Thanks" as she puts it in full throttle...
Only it gone reverse and crashes on some boxes and trash cans.
'This is going to be a long ride…' Rouge thought sourly, as her partner groans and tries her best to steer the thing to the right direction.
:::^*^:::
Axl heard what happened to X and Zero on their mission about the Force Metal. He then heard something about a factory(4), where the Copy Chips were once being produced there. Wanting to learn more about his body and about the person who saved him, he requested to investigate the factory from Signas. The leader of the Maverick Hunters, is a bit of having second thoughts on letting Axl go but wanting to know how the prototype New Gen was made... he allowed him.
So that night, Axl boarded the ship that is heading to a small town just outside Giga City.
And fate... will cross their path.
Silver: It is done! Yay! References and fun facts!:
1. Rouge Chain, is similar to the Chain rod that Zero uses in MMZ2. Only difference is, it is attached to her arm.
2. Axl's line... I kinda like this one, and I do not own it!
3. Yeah, Barrel is here. If you remember that he sacrifice himself and appeared on the screen in the last ep of Stream, telling that he and Duo has been traveling thru many planets? Well, let's say both of them found a portal or a Fossa Ambience and somehow got themselves transported in the parallel world.
4. And this is set in Command Mission but the year is 21XX, that's all you need to know.
Fun Facts:
When I created this fic in scratch... Sora and Rouge were not yet created. At first, the idea is on Netto becoming Axl, tries to find his way home and accidentally bought the whole Maverick Hunter gang in his home world. Then I began to think... that the only problem is solve in this story was Netto's way home, reuniting with his family and not the relationship of humans with technology. So to do that, I need a human to represent the humankind while Netto represents the Reploids and Saito represents the Net Navis. And so Sora is born... but not alone, considering Rockman will reunite with his brother, so I created Rouge as Sora's Net Navi. And the plot changes a bit and Connected Hearts is born.
Silver: Sorry, I'm in no mood for bloopers right nao... but we have a fun fact to replace it for a while, read and review minna-san.