Yes, chapter 7 has arrived! "Give zis American a wide birth..." Oops, wrong theme! XD

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN MEGAMAN BATTLE NETWORK! ALL RIGHTS GO TO CAPCOM! (While some OCs' names belong to Capcom, this AU version is mine, and all OCs are mine)

And...begin!


Bass charged forward, Dark Arm Blade out, and began more swordplay with Zeta. Zeta jumps back and attempts to use SonicSword attacks, but Bass counters them with his Hell's Rolling attacks, and follows up with a Darkness Overload. Zeta took the hit with surprise.

[Meanwhile, Real world, SciLab]

"Huh?" Dr. Hikari was stunned by the news.

"Yes Dr. Hikari," Zeke confirmed, "Bass is also helping us out by fighting Zeta himself."

"He must have his own reasoning to fight other than survival…" Dr. Hikari muttered.

"Dad," Lan spoke up, "It really doesn't matter at this point what Bass's motives are, what matters is Bass wants to help."

"I guess you're right Lan," Dr. Hikari sighed, "Thank you for telling me, now we can make the weapon with far more quality and more effectiveness."

"No problem," Zeke said as he and Lan left for home.

[Lan's house]

"It's been a long day," Lan mentioned, "Let's get some sleep for tomorrow."

"Agreed," Zeke concurred as the men went to their rooms to sleep.

[Zeke's dream]

"Zeke!" a girl said in distress, "Do something!"

"I got it Irene, Zero!" Zeke shouted, seeing the assaulting Zeta moving in on Zero and Iris, "I got something for you, ElecBlade, BattleChip in! Download!" Zero's right arm transformed into an ElecBlade, and Zero was just about to attack when he was suddenly immobilized by Zeta. Zeta then set his eyes on Iris, and walked up to her.

"Iris!" Zero shouted as he struggled to get free.

"Zeke!" Irene shouted.

"Zero, HELP!" Iris shouted as Zeta impaled her on Zeta's ZetaSword, deleting her.

"IRIS!" Zero cried with tears filling his eyes.

"ZEKE TAKASHI!" Irene shouted angerly, "WHY did you let Iris get deleted!"

"It wasn't my fault, Zero was-" Zeke started, but Irene cut him off.

"Zero just STOOD THERE!" Irene interrupted him, "Don't you guys care about us at all!" Before Zeke could retort, Irene ran away, tears in her eyes.

"Irene…" Zeke said futilely, he dropped to his knees and sobbed heavily.

[Zeke's room]

"Iris!" Zero shouted apparently waking up from a nightmare, Zeke waking up at the same time. Zero and Zeke looked at each other. "I just had a nightmare about seeing Iris getting deleted by Zeta…"

"I had the same nightmare…" Zeke mentioned, "Only Irene gave me a hard time about it."

"That's not good…" Zero commented, "a bad omen?"

"I'd rather not believe it to be anything…" Zeke dismissed the theory. Suddenly the door opened to reveal a worried Lan.

"Zeke!" Lan yelled, "are you okay!"

"I'm fine…" Zeke said, "just a nightmare…"

"Okay, well you actually got me up on-time," Lan laughed, "So let's get to school."

"Alright…" Zeke said. The school day followed as normal, uninteresting minus the mild Zeta virus –busting. Zeke was still worried about the nightmare he had, as much as he wanted to dismiss it.

"You alright man?" Dex asked the troubled Zeke walking out of the school, "You seem quieter today."

"Leave him," Lan defended, "He just had a nightmare about his crush, that's all." Dex looked at Lan, then at Zeke.

"Okay, I hear you," Dex finally said. The rest of the trip to the 'forkway', the place where most of the group parts ways, was quiet, after the forkway, was left with Zeke, Lan, and Maylu.

"You want to talk about it?" Maylu asked, attempting to help Zeke. Zeke looked down at Zero, who gave him a nod.

"Okay, come with Lan and me," Zeke said. Lan looked at Maylu and Zeke and digested what was about to take place.

"Okay," Lan confirmed. The trio entered into Lan's house, said their greetings to Mrs. Hikari, and went to Zeke's room, where he and Zero talked about the nightmare.

"Dang," Lan was the first to comment, "missing your crush and the Zeta virus must be taking a toll on you…"

"Wish we had some way of finding her…" Maylu commented, "From what you're saying…she shouldn't be acting like that, especially since it wasn't even Zero's fault, it was Zeta that prevented him from doing anything."

"I called it a nightmare for a reason," Zeke mentioned.

"Very true," Lan confirmed, "But Maylu's right, we need to find a way to find her…" he paused, as if recalling something to mind, "Oh! Isn't Chaud and Raika doing some world patrol for the Officials Megaman?" Lan held up his PET to converse with his Navi.

"Yeah, they should still be in Sharo," Megaman replied.

"Alright! I'll send a message to Chaud, ask him to help us as a favor for me," Lan announced, "Zeke, you happen to have any pictures of Irene and Iris?"

"That's like asking a random person if he has a NetNavi!" Zeke joked and activated Zero's PET to the PC, "Zero, open file; 'Irene/Iris memories' picture folder!"

"Picture FOLDER!" Maylu repeated, "you must REALLY like this girl."

"You just noticed it now?" Zeke joked. Zero presented the folder on the PC screen. "Open it in thumbnails." Zero opened the folder and showed several pictures of a younger version of Zeke with a young girl with blue eyes and brown hair tied up in a ponytail, along with several pictures of Zero and a violet colored Navi with a skirt, emerald green eyes and a semi-long, thin ponytail. Her emblem on her chest had a yellow background, four green lobes in an X pattern, a stub line jutting out from the lobes' center. She was half a head shorter than Zero, her helmet consisting of the same violet color, but had a lavender form of her emblem close to her face. Lan and Maylu jacked in their Navis so that they could see the pictures themselves. The folder had a small, active scroll bar.

"Oh, my…" Roll commented, "These pictures are sooo CUTE!"

"Wow Zero…" Megaman commented, "You took all these of you and Iris?"

"There wasn't much free time between my purging of the DarkPower, and my rebellion," Zero explained, "So we decided to use all the free time we had with each other, sharing our memories that we make in that short amount of time."

"Wow…" Roll said amazed.

"There seems to be more of Zeke and Irene than that of Zero and Iris…" Lan observed. Maylu smacked him on his arm.

"That's because Zeke knew Irene nearly his whole LIFE, Zero and Iris only knew each other for—"

"A month," Zero finished for Maylu, "total."

"Oh…" Lan said in realization as Zero scrolled down.

"Zero," Zeke commanded, "open the 'Final Memory' folder…"

"Roger," Zero complied and scrolled down to the bottom, where another folder laid, with only one item in it.

"You put only one picture in a separate folder?" Lan asked.

"You'll see why I did that," Zeke assured Lan as Zero opened the folder, revealing Zeke at nearly his current age, and a more current version of Iris, still maintaining the ponytail, but it was fluffier and longer, and she wore a purple T-shirt and what appeared to be a lavender skirt, but the picture cut off where the skirt began. She was also a third of a head shorter than Zeke.

"Wh-when was this?" Lan choked out.

"That," Zeke answered, "was her fifteenth birthday… this is the most current picture of her…I look at it right before I hit the sack…" his eyes began to water, "and every night…I promise myself…that'd I'll see her again, even if it means I'll die doing it, I wouldn't even care…because…" tears began to fall from his face, "I'd take death over never seeing her again…" Maylu put a hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay Zeke…" Maylu said, attempting to comfort Zeke, "we're going to get her for you, it'll be alright, you'll see her again."

"Megaman," Zero began, giving Megaman two files, "here are the pictures you'll need to send, facials of Irene and Iris…"

"Thank you," Megaman said, receiving the files and sending them to Lan's PET, "Lan, send Chaud the message with those files."

"I'm working on it," Lan said, quickly putting together the message and attaching the files onto it, and sending the message, "there."

"See Zeke?" Maylu attempted again to comfort Zeke, "We're already working on finding her. As soon as we're done with this business with the Zeta virus, we'll go help Chaud and Raika find her, okay?" Suddenly, Lan's PET bleeped with a telephone call.

"Lan!" a cold voice erupted from the PET, "What do you mean by this 'favor'?"

"It's called, 'helping out a friend'!" Lan retorted, "I don't know if you'll even understand that, Chaud, but at least give some respect and help us find her, we're kind of in a jam at the moment, so we can't look for ourselves, and you're already abroad so I thought you could do this side-request. We'd do the same for you if there was someone you really cared about missing." Chaud sighed.

"Okay, I'll see what I can do from here, what are you going to do when you get out of your 'jam'?" Chaud asked.

"First you'll have to give us what you have, namely last known location, and we'll take it from there," Lan explained.

"Alright, I'll ask Raika if he can access the census database," Chaud said, "or something of the kind for Sharo, but I don't know if we'll be able to find her here."

"If you don't find her there, then you're closer to finding her than you were before," Lan dismissed the pessimistic comment, "I can tell you now that she won't be at Netopia."

"Alright, so we can cross that country off the list," Chaud said, "I'll do what I can from here, good luck to you."

"Alright, same to you man," Lan said as Chaud cut the connection, "Don't worry Zeke, we're gonna get her back for ya!"

"Thanks guys…" Zeke said, "you guys are the best friends I had since…Felix, Alex, and Irene…"


Nice, isn't it? I'm thinking about doing things considering my OCs, which I'll make a poll of some sort, perhaps at the end of my fics, still don't know yet. Next chapter: Chaud gets a hit, some R&R, and fights at school!