ZERO NETWORK TRANSMISSION
Rockman Zero/Rockman Battle Network
Chapter 4: The Nightmare Revived
Authored By The Several

Zero. EXE and his opponent, Fefnir. EXE, stared at each other intensely as the two began to crave for a fight. Their arms clenched and their muscles twitched, each waited for the other to make the first move, reading intensely into each other's body movement.

Meanwhile, on the sidelines on the back of the crowd that gathered around the battletop, a mysterious netop and her PET's netnavi watched ominously over their battle.

"So… Who do you think will win?" the mysterious netop asked her navi.

"…It will be the smaller red one," the netnavi replied in a gruff voice.

"…You are never wrong, but right now, I doubt you. The smaller navi called Zero. EXE has but a novice for a netop."

The navi stayed silent for a second, and then replied, "It is not the netop. She is just a child, in possession of something she cannot handle. But there is something special about that navi of hers…"

Back to the battletop, Ciel and Zero are getting ready to get the battle started. "You ready, Ciel? Let's do better this time," Zero says without taking his eyes off his opponent.

"Y-Yes," Ciel said, trying not to panic so much or she'll get lectured by Zero again. She gathers all her courage and exhaled a large breath one last time. "Okay… let's do this."

Fefnir gritted his teeth and took out his unbelievably huge blaster. "Are you ready, punk? Because all that will be left of you after this battle will be a heap of defragmented data!"

Zero doesn't change his expression and instead scoffed to his side, waving his long blonde hair in taunt. "Talk is cheap, and all I see is a big mouth with a moron attached."

"You'll pay for that remark!" Fefnir screamed in fury. In an instant, he dashed furiously at Zero with his iron fist. "Deletion awaits!"

Zero easily evades sideways to Fefnir's surprise. "Too slow," Zero smirked. With a quick swipe, Fefnir smashed to a sidewall from Zero's Z-Saber slash. Everyone watching was bewildered by the small navi's incredible speed. But wasting no time, Fefnir stood quickly from the debris. "Heh, heh… Not bad. I guess I underestimated your speed." Fefnir took out his huge armblaster again and dashed. "BUT THIS IS THE REAL THING!"

"Taaaaake… THIS!" Fefnir exclaimed loudly, aiming both arm-cannons to the sky, one in each hand. With a feral growl, the cannons shot wildly into the air, raining a hail of grenades at Zero's location that exploded on contact.

Zero tried to dodge them as hard and as fast as he could, but there were simply too many of them raining down all at once, and was like dodging raindrops during a thunderstorm. Inevitably he was hit, and hard. Zero took several shots in different parts of his armor, but Fefnir wasn't feeling merciful. Converting his hand cannon straight forward and changing its ammo, Fefnir now shot a flurry of rapid-fire bullets on the surprised Zero.

Unloading on the blonde-haired navi, Fefnir stopped and waited until everything was clear, checking to see how many holes he had plugged into his opponent's body or if he had completely annihilated him. To his surprise, a barrier had surrounded Zero's body, damage recovering bit by bit as a small cyberelf floated around him.

"Wh… What is this?" Fefnir questioned, until he realized that it was actually the doing of Zero's netop.

"Thanks… but I'd rather you not let it cut so close next time," Zero commented as the Nurse Elf rotated around him, recovering the rest of his wounds.

'Whew,' Ciel said with a sigh of relief. 'I don't know how other netbattlers do this! Especially with these netnavi's speeds, everything that's going on is so fast! This can't be good for one's heart…'

'More ZERO chips, like dad said,' Ciel whispered to herself as her Barrier and Recovery chips came out the slot as red versions. 'Might not sit too well if people saw these,' Ciel thought, quickly putting the used chips back in her purse.

"Anyway," Zero said, standing back up, readied and recovered as the Nurse Elf dissipates. "Now… it's my turn."

"Bye," Zero said, teleporting behind Fefnir in a flash and taking no time to slam a charged fist directly at his face. Fefnir skids across for a couple of feet.

Fefnir was unfazed, however, much to Zero's surprise. "What… That's it? You call that a punch? It stung for a bit, but you're not planning on taking me down with just that, are you?"

"Oh well," Fefnir continued, raising both fists and changing his weapons once again to what seemed like gigantic steel knuckles. "You're fast, I'll give you that, punk… but with arms like these, I don't really need to aim! Get ready!"

Fefnir dashed again, this time using his back thrusters for extra momentum. Zero barely avoided Fefnir's arm as his first fist flew straight and unchallenged. Continuously, Fefnir kept giving him a flurry of blows with his left and right, Zero only nearly evading them all. "Stop moving so I can hit you!" Fefnir shouted in rage as he continued his fury combo.

Zero on the other hand concentrated on evading, unable to get an upper hand and go on the offensive. 'Damn… He's punching so wildly with such huge protected arms, I can't get an opening…'

He then tried to get Ciel, who was too inexperienced to keep up. "Ciel! What are you doing? You're a netop! Operate!"

"O-Oh! ...R-Right!"

"Don't bother," Fefnir said as he continued his relentless barrage. "You're netop won't be able to do anything to help you! From the looks of it, she's a beginner! You'll only lose faster if you ask for her help!"

To Fefnir's surprise, Zero smugly smiles. "…I don't think so." When Fefnir gets a direct hit to his face, he was surprised to see a Shield Boomerang covering his way. "No way! A shield?" Zero smirks at him with a satisfied face. "…She's actually better than you think she is."

"That's right, ya big meanie!" Ciel said as Fefnir looked to her. "I'm as good as I look, and that's saying a lot!"

Zero shakes his head. "Oh brother."

"WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, ZERO? ARE YOU SAYING I'M NOT PRETTY?" Ciel shouts at him as Zero covers the area where his ears are supposed to be (just to annoy her).

"Stop ignoring me, you fools!" Fefnir interrupted, enraged. He charged again, this time shooting fireballs out of his blaster.

"This is getting bothersome, so I'm ending it," Zero declared as he shielded it with another Shield Boomerang, and then swiftly threw it at Fefnir. Fefnir jumped to evade it, but was taken by surprise when Zero appeared right in front of him. "Airshot chip x3, in… download!" Ciel declared as she inserted the three chips in rapid succession. The data digitized in Zero's hand, and appears as a Level-3 Z-Shot!

Zero blasted him directly in the face with an overdose of charged-shot energy, sending him flying towards the other end of the battlefield, creating a trail of ruins and smoke amongst the digital field. The chips came out at the other end of her PET as red ZERO chips, as expected. This time, however, it did not go unnoticed.

"D…Did you see that?" the mysterious netop exclaimed to her navi, who was just as surprised. "Data corruption… That navi is more than abnormal, he's viral software!"

"Whoo! We got him!" Ciel jumped around in success, though short lived as suddenly, out of the smoke and broken landscape, Fefnir's form began to arise.

The mysterious netop raised an eyebrow. "Hmmm… looks like the battle is just starting."

Fefnir's eyes were red with rage and the aura around his body was so intense that it can clearly be seen. His teeth became sharp and edged, gritting and grinding in fury. "Heh… Heh-heh… Heh-Heh-Heh…"

"Gwahahahahahahahahaha!" Fefnir laughed in a crazed rage, his eyes burning with a lust for destruction. "So… you're that navi my colleague mentioned. Didn't really listen too well to her for obvious reasons, but now I regret it."

"Colleague," Ciel repeated. "Another Guardian… Leviathan?"

"You know, we've been looking for you for a long time now… Zero," Fefnir mouthed off, charging his weapons to maximum. "Our leader will be pleased to know you're still okay, so he can have the pleasure of killing you himself... If I leave him anything but your dust, that is!"

Zero looked back at Ciel and said, "Ciel. Don't panic."

Ciel looked back at him with a clearly sweating face. "I…I'll try."

Zero looked back to Fefnir, but replied, "Don't worry… I won't die."

Ciel swallowed fearfully, but smiled back anyway. She believed him, and she'll do anything to make sure that happens. "Okay. I'm fine now… Let's do it."

"I didn't give you enough credit earlier, Zero. My bad," Fefnir finalized, his charging mechanisms ready to burst. "You know, Guardians like me normally have this thing called a Limiter set on us to prevent us from accidentally breaking digital space. We put it on in public domain so we don't accidentally break anything with our internal power levels alone..."

"But right now," he smiled evilly, charging with raging speed at Zero. "Now… there'll be no such thing! DIIEEEEE!"

Zero evaded his fist, but was surprised when Fefnir was actually aiming for the floor underneath him! As Fefnir's fist connected with the ground, a tremendous fiery inferno exploded, taking anything within five meters of the origin point… including Zero!

Zero's burning body flew and smashed to an endwall. In a single maximum-charged hit, Fefnir managed to easily knock him down for the count.

"Geheheh... BWAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!" Fefnir howled in victory. "One hit? PATHETIC! I guess the Limiter off was too much for you, LOSER!"

"Zero! Zero!" Ciel said desperately. As she does, Fefnir walked ominously towards him. "Zero, wake up! He's coming closer!"

Zero remained unconscious and gave no reply, his body filled with burns and smoke oozed from his person.

The mysterious observing netop sighed. "Looks like you were wrong this time. I win this bet."

Her netnavi waited for a moment, and replied simply, "…Look again."

To everyone's surprise, Zero arose… but Ciel knew, Fefnir knew, everyone that was watching knew there was something different about him. He glowed the same bright aura Fefnir was showing just several minutes ago, only colder and darker in nature. His fingers were like claws and were sharper like five deadly blades in each hand. The jewel on his forehead glowed brightly and the expression on his face couldn't be seen. But with Ciel being so close, she could see the intense darkness that seemed to spread through his body… like a nightmare.

In a single instant, the battletop's digital environment was suddenly covered in darkness, a plague originating from Zero's body. It rendered the battletop's outside view useless except for Ciel's PET view, and the device itself had begun to crackle and short-circuit like a livewire.

Ciel almost dropped her PET in both fear and recollection. 'This… The Zero Virus... Is... I-Is it coming back to life?' Her face showed complete dread and disbelief. 'Is this... how the REAL Zero Virus effects netnavis?'

Destruction. Rendered inoperable. Thousands deleted. All these words used in relation to the Zero Calamity years ago. Is this what she faced now?

Fefnir didn't even see him move, but in an instant, Zero was beside him. Without attacking, Zero just stood beside Fefnir. Fefnir was too shocked to move, and as he saw Zero's expression clearly, he was too afraid... a terrible feeling of terror and reluctance overtook him.

Fefnir gulped. 'Like... Like staring... at a demon!'

Zero turned around, and in a blink, Zero punched him in the chest with his sharp fingers. Data poured out of the whole in his armor, as what it seemed to everyone who was watching, it was almost as if he was… absorbing Fefnir.

Fefnir couldn't move as data rushed out of the hole in his chest where Zero's hand laid. Ciel, on the other hand, didn't want it to continue. "Z...Zero, stop that!"

Zero snapped as he woke up and took his hands out of Fefnir's body in surprise. He looked at his hands, seeing the data rushing in and out clearly. He put his hands on his head, and shook nervously like he had a bad headache… like everything was a bad dream…A nightmare… The Nightmare…

"The Nightmare…" Zero muttered to himself, but Ciel being so close, she clearly heard the phrase Zero mentioned that sank deep into her soul.

Ciel has had enough and decided to jack him out without delay. Zero returned to the PET, and she ran as fast she could home, ignoring all else that was in her way or in her thoughts. No one understood what really happened, as it all happened so fast. No one noticed the trail of tears she left as she stormed away from the area.

The mysterious netop was just as shocked as everyone around the area. "W…What happened?"

"HE happened… As I said, that navi was more than meets the eye."

Ciel dropped her PET on her room's desk and looked at her navi. "Zero… What… What happened? Seeing you… I've never been more afraid… my heart feels so weak…"

Zero was still looking at his hands as he replied, "I… I'm not sure." He could see that his hands were back to normal, as he too was. Zero looked to Ciel and says, "Ciel… you're crying?"

Ciel looked at him with teary eyes. "What do you think? I almost killed a navi back there!"

Zero looked away to his side and replied, "Deletion is a part of a battle. In a serious battle, it's either you or the—" Zero was unable to continue as Ciel looked at him sadly.

Several silent seconds later, Ciel dropped to her bed, looking away from him. Zero stayed silent as well.

Then, Ciel said, "Navi's are still living things. So real, yet so… If you died, what…"

She was unable to finish her sentence, and Zero failed to reply back.

Before she fell unconscious on her bed, Zero heard her whisper, "Zero… who are you?"

Zero looked down. Although he knew Ciel was asleep, he replied, "Honestly, Ciel… I don't know..."

He then looked at Ciel with sad lonely eyes and said in whispers, "...But I sure am not who you think I am..."

To be continued…

NEXT CHAPTER: The Nightmare, like a warning, had begun to give signs of its coming, it's return... with Zero's true purpose ready to set itself free. The viral data, the Zero Virus, The Nightmare… most of it was unclear. And the mysterious pair finally reveal themselves… in a battle unlike Ciel nor Zero had ever seen before.

Author's Notes: Sorry, people! I thought I could fit the duel with the mysterious team here and finally reveal their identity, but I guess you'll have to wait for the next chapter.

You might also notice I referred to the mysterious netop as a "her." Some of you guessed wrong then! Hehehe! Maybe with this clue, someone might actually know who it is this time. Remember, this is from the Rockman Zero world, so keep guessing!