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terratasha: Well...shoot yeah you're right it all is pretty obvious. *sighs* Well, I tried. But yeah, now we begin the a whole new channel of craziness in the Double NEetwork Saga called well...you'll just have to wait and see what their demands are. XD

Day 5 Part 1 – Huge Bug Disaster

It had taken Mayl almost a full hour to make it past the SciLab security. Everyone was confused after Freezeman had not only frozen the Net, but had also the doors that allowed people in and out of SciLab. With the fire a few years ago, SciLab had become more and more of a hot spot in terms of its lack of protection. The red haired woman took a breath as she finally got into the elevator taking her up to Dr. Hikari's lab. She had been at first heading back to ACDC, but later had been told that Megaman would need to be taken back to SciLab. Something began to gnaw at her heart. Was this that bad feeling she had a couple weeks ago?

As she stepped through the doors, she quickly rushed over to the small back office where both Lan and Dr. Hikari were huddled around. Each of the Hikari males seemed to barely notice her, deeply engrossed in what they were trying to do. Mayl knocked on the wall, afraid to completely startle them by walking up behind them. Dr. Hikari didn't seem to jump but turned around, as if expecting someone. She noticed that face seemed to frown a little more when he realized it was her at the door.

"Oh Mayl, hello," he quickly answered before turning around to continue searching through some code.

Lan made an uneasy face as he walked up to his girlfriend and hugged her, "He doesn't mean it. It's…not that good around here."

Mayl nodded, understanding. Megaman was Dr. Hikari's son; it couldn't be helped that the man was so stressed out over him, "What's wrong with him?" She asked.

The brunette blew a breath of air, "We don't know. He seemed to be fine coming back from the fight with Void and then all his energy literally dropped during the fight with Bass. It could be a virus, but he's passed all the tests so far and dad's searching through his main core for errors."

"Did he find any?" Mayl asked, remembering Roll mentioning that earlier. The pink navi had stayed by Megaman's side since she and Saber had brought him here. Unfortunately, Saber had to return back to Saria, who really wouldn't have been able to make her way through SciLab security anyway. The girl had gone on a hike earlier and had slipped on some of the terrain. She was alright for the most part, but she really wasn't supposed to be moving on that sprained ankle too much yet. Plus, she was getting used to the crutches.

Lan scoffed, not at Mayl but at the situation itself, "They're all over the place. It's like his systems decided to collectively crash all at once, but not enough to kill him. We had to put him in a Dark Mode just so that we can look through his data."

"Dark Mode?" Mayl asked. Considering their history, she wasn't sure how much trust she would put in that.

Lan made a forced laugh, "It's nothing bad. It's just one of the most powerful Sleep Modes we can put a navi in. We're trying to find the source of the bug, but that would lie deep in his System Core. It's like surgery. You get knocked out for all the invasive stuff and any minor detail they just numb you to the pain."

"Oh," Mayl said, internally proud of her boyfriend for his through explanation. There had been a time where she was almost not certain that he wanted to be a scientist, but Lan had done a lot of growing up over the years, "Roll's still by him right?"

"Yeah. We had to have her back up a bit since her even touching him may be dangerous right now. The virus could be contagious but worse off it that it might distract dad." The brunette explained as his girlfriend hugged him. The boy made a soft smile before accepting the embrace and hugging back.

"It'll be okay."

A few seconds later, the statement seemed to be almost as false as saying that light and dark where the same thing. Megaman gripped the ground hard, someone breaking past the supposed sleep he was supposed to be in and roared. The two NetOps rushed back over to the computer while Roll screamed in surprised and Dr. Hikari worked to try and put Megaman back to sleep. The noise sounded like an animal dying and ripped at everyone's hearts. While it had only been half a minute before he stopped and went back to sleep, the room didn't move in what felt like an eternity.

Dr. Hikari sighed heavily, "Unbelievable. Whatever this virus is, it's even managed to affect the Cybeast. But from the sound of it, Gregar is not doing much better than Megaman," The man slammed his fist at the computer, shocking both Mayl and Lan since he was not one to display any kind of anger or annoyance in this manner before.

The doctor took a breath before looking back at the two young adults, "Sorry everyone. It's just that I'm not any closer to figuring out what this virus is doing to him. I only know that whatever it is, it's causing his System Core data to decay," the doctor sucked in air, "I give it four weeks before he falls apart."

Mayl gasped as she noticed her navi collapse to her knees. Lan however, seemed to take the news the worst, "What do you mean fall apart?" He asked shakily, almost as if he was afraid to know the answer.

"I mean…" the doctor started before he saw one of the assistants at the mouth of the office, "Oh good, Diane. You have the files?" He asked, somewhat relieved. At least he would be able to restore several sections of Hub to extend his life. It was a little known fact that both Tadashi and Yuichiro Hikari had both attempted to mess with the order of placing humanity in the cyber world. However, the difference was Tadashi used himself as his own experiment while Yuichiro used his son.

The small woman cleared her throat, "I'm sorry, doctor. But those files you wanted me to get, they don't exist in this database. Or in any of them actually." The doctor's face fell as she explained, "I'm not doubting they exist; but when I went to the archives, there weren't any records there at all. Even when I tried to look in the area you told me too. Actually, that's why I came up here myself. Your Navi Project folder…it's gone."

Dr. Hikari resisted the urge to slam the table once more. He had expected them to do something after he had been suspended, but they hadn't. So when had SciLab gone back and removed the files? Worse off, they had removed everything. The man gave a shuddered breath, "Thank you, Diane. You can go."

The dark haired woman nodded before heading back to the elevator. The room didn't speak until Lan broke the silence, "Dad? What's going on?"

The man shook his head as he set the scanner to from manual to automatic. He didn't know why he felt the need to do the programs job when he himself had coded it. But maybe, it was to ensure that no mistakes had been made. Unlike when he had grafted Hub's DNA into code.

"I never told you or Hub the full story about my project. As you all know, I placed Hub's DNA into Megaman's System Core and as a result brought his soul into the cyber world. But that wasn't where the tale ended. They suspended me after they had learned of how Megaman was created. You see, during the time when I completed the project, many people began to question about the morality of the project. More so, they began to fear the product of it. People asked how the navi would feel as a human in a virtual world. Or what if that human soul was to be evil and took over the Net using the body. Not many people knew about my research and even fewer were happy with my decision to go behind everyone's back and use my own son.

"What you just saw was the after effects of this project. Imagine if people knew what my project had done. People would cause an uproar. The only reason they didn't destroy my files because I had begged them not to. I thought they would keep them in the archives, at least among all the clutter they have down there. But apparently, someone decided it was time to have them moved so that no one could find them."

The man gave a heavy sigh, "I was at least hoping to use Gramp's Note and try and restore Megaman, but even that has been moved. Sometimes, I wonder why they just didn't fire me; but I guess they'd rather punish me by watching my son die for a second time." Dr. Hikari turned back towards the screen, somewhat afraid to look at his other son but more so because he wanted to see Hub.

Was all this a crime? Did it make him a bad person to actually take the chance to save his son from the unfair hold of death and give him a chance at life? Would it have just been better for everyone if he had left his son to die? Dr. Hikari wasn't a man who had handled death too easily. Had it not been for his father's note to Lan, he might have actually cracked under the emotion of it all. Every time his sons got into danger, he worried for both of them. He had always wondered whether or not they would make it out alive. And at times where they were at their worst, he sometimes lost the distinction between son and navi.

Hub was his son, but yet he wasn't human. At least not human in the sense that everyone expected him to be. He had feelings but he was not constrained by them. If he needed to, he could swallow his own need and do what was better for everyone, especially his NetOp. Thus he was a navi. And now, as Hub was on a death bed once again, he returned back to his question that he had tried to throw aside when he had digitized Hub's DNA.

Had it been the right thing to do?

The only upside to the conversion was that Hub could live without HBD… Wait…no he hadn't been free of the disease. A tiny piece of Hub's DNA had etched too hard into his System Core and prevented a few things from expressing themselves right, like eye color. But what if…

The others watched as the doctor proceeded to type in an area location for the program to check. His face fell as he saw the program light up red. Lan, who had been shaken out of his stupor by the noise of a successful find, walked up to the computer again with Mayl in tow, "Hey, it found the bug!" He said happily as his father typed in a few words lifelessly.

"Dr. Hikari?" Mayl asked as the doctor's face seemed to fall once again.

"What kind of monster does this?" he asked to no one in particular.

"Dad?"

"Something went wrong when I put Hub's DNA into Megaman. A byte out of place. The DNA engraved too much into his system. I thought that this would only affect his eye color. But it seems to have had a lot more inside it. The amount of information in a single piece of human DNA is amazing," Dr. Hikari turned to his son.

"Whoever sent Void knows about Megaman's data extensively. They…they made a virus to specifically reactivate this part of his DNA. I guess what I'm trying to saw is that…Megaman has HBD. It's what is causing all these errors because the programs can't handle this human disease. What's worse is that the virus itself is locked in so deep that I can't do a thing about it. It needs a deactivation code in order to stop its unraveling. If I can figure it out, I can save Hub. But if I can't…"

Everyone felt the knee to the gut, but Mayl had been to only one able to speak, "Megaman dies."

And just cruel of fate—or had someone been waiting for this moment—the sound of an email blasted in everyone's ears. Mayl looked down at her PET and had half a mind not to open the file. Except for the heading grabbing her attention.

HBD Antivirus.

What the? As she opened the file, she couldn't help but read it aloud, "To the dear humans reading this message, I see that you've finally figured out just what our master has done to your beloved Megaman. Well, we actually have a cure. Meet us in Undernet 4 in twenty minutes. Don't be late. Wheeee."

"It's a trap. Has to be." Dr. Hikari said, still too slightly stunned to not point out the obvious.

"We know. And we're going." Roll said, speaking for the first time since bringing Hub back to SciLab. Her hands were balled up into a fist tightly. It was safe to say that she was more than likely very very angry.

Mayl nodded at her partner as Roll took one last look at the navi lying down at the ground before racing off towards the link towards the Net. Whoever thought that this was a good idea was going to pay. But something did disturb Mayl. Where did she hear that last sentence from? It was familiar, but not very since it must have been years ago when she last heard some saw "whee" like that. She shook her head; she would find out soon enough.

Update: Friday

Ghost: *eye twitches* I hate this guy. I remember being a little kid fighting and wondering why I couldn't beat him. It just wasn't fair in the beginning. And then Duo happened and that took a day to beat and gahhhhhh!...Oh wait, you all are still here. Hehhehheh, that's awkward. Anypanel, that's all for today folks! Oh, and I'm sensing something new coming next week...

Megaman Double Network Epilogue: Soul Awakening November 24th