The second chapter of Exhaustion is also the last one, as I said in the previous chapter, and you guys get to see what ProtoMan thought of at the end of the last chapter.

To inform everyone, I'm uploading these as I finish the different 'parts', so I won't get to read anyone's things and then be like 'ooooh you're close enough I guess' in this AN, but see if your ideas are anywhere close to what our favourite red swordsman does.

Since I wanna get into this and write, I'll end this AN here.

I don't own MegaMan Battle Network/NT Warrior, on with the show!

OOOOOO

ProtoMan dedicated a grand total of five minutes to writing out various emails, and as soon as he'd sent them, he went straight back to working on Chaud's list. He'd more or less abandoned his own by now (he'd actually completely forgotten about it, but that didn't matter to him anymore) and was focusing completely on his operator's work.

Half an hour later, he was distracted from a particularly evil piece of schoolwork (something about a month-long project, but who cared anymore) by several Navis streaming into the cyberspace of Chaud's PET.

He paused and turned to face them - MegaMan, SearchMan, Roll, Glide, IceMan, GutsMan, TomahawkMan, NumberMan and AquaMan . . . they'd all answered his emails. Thank god.

"You look terrible," was the first thing MegaMan said to him. Far from being amused, as his operator likely would be, he was instead concerned.

"What?" ProtoMan said blankly.

"And I thought MegaMan was bad after a sleepless night . . . You look like you really need to go into sleep-mode," Roll said worriedly. "Is Chaud working you too hard?"

"No, he is not. It is Chaud who is working too hard, but he is unable to stop, he has deadlines and I am trying my best to help," ProtoMan explained, or tried to. Roll had said 'a sleepless night', implying that there was only one night of sleeplessness. No, there had been many, but somehow he knew saying that would just make everything worse.

"What is it you need us to help you with?" SearchMan asked. Unlike the other Navis, who all looked at ProtoMan with varying degrees of concern, SearchMan's expression was instead (forgive the pun) searching. Not wary, exactly, but he was giving ProtoMan a considering look he couldn't figure out.

"I . . ." ProtoMan trailed off, distracted suddenly. Chaud had gone silent again. "Excuse me."

He left the bewildered Navis inside the PET and appeared once again as a small hologram in the real world.

"WAKE UP!" he shouted without even checking to see if Chaud had once again fallen into a state of half-consciousness.

Once he was certain Chaud was working, however slowly, he went back into the PET to face his shocked friends.

"I have never heard you yell at your operator before," Glide said, awed.

"It's the only way I can keep him going, aside from requesting more coffee," ProtoMan explained. He paused. "Ah . . . I have not explained why I asked you here, have I?"

"No, you haven't," TomahawkMan replied, exchanging a wide-eyed glance with GutsMan.

"He has too much to do, and too little time in which to do it all," ProtoMan said. "I have made a list - here, this is it - and no matter how much I try to help, the workload just . . . I am aware this sounds absurd, but it does not seem to be getting smaller. I am working, so is Chaud, yet nothing we do will make this go away. Or . . . not 'go away', but . . . no, what . . ."

He'd lost his train of thought and frowned at his feet, trying to figure out where he'd been going with that sentence. But no matter how hard he tried, ProtoMan just couldn't remember what he'd been trying to say. Perhaps his energy levels were too low again. He needed another recovery chip.

"So, you want us to help you lighten the workload for Chaud?" MegaMan guessed, coming forward to study the list. When he saw everything that was on there, his mouth dropped open. "This is . . . P-ProtoMan, how much time does Chaud have left for this stuff?"

"The deadline for all of it is today," ProtoMan answered.

"That's impossible!" MegaMan gasped. "How can one person get all of this done in a single day? Even a Navi couldn't manage this!"

ProtoMan shook his head and banished the list. "This is why I requested your assistance, all of you. No matter how fast or hard I work, I cannot make this go away - and Chaud is unable to work to his usual pace, he is too tired. I have to force him to wake up or he will slip into unconsciousness and everything will just get worse."

His friends exchanged glances, and ProtoMan was disheartened to see that none of them looked entirely happy about this. He did not know whether or not that was due to his explanation of Chaud's predicament, or because he had the nerve to ask for help with something like this, but he was beyond desperate now.

He got on his hands and knees and bowed, forehead touching the ground.

"Please," he said. "I have no right to ask any of you this, I know, but please, for the sake of my operator if nothing else, I ask for your help. You do not have to do much, I don't even mind if you say 'no', but please . . . I am asking - no. I am begging for your help."

He didn't look up, so he had no idea what sort of expressions this display was getting, but the silence that followed was more than telling.

ProtoMan had braced himself for the worst when he was surprised by a gentle hand settling on his shoulder, and he raised his head to look at SearchMan, who had gotten down onto one knee in front of him.

"There's no need for that," SearchMan told him. "Of course we'll help."

For the first time in days, ProtoMan felt something akin to hope - and sheer gratitude towards his friends.

He stood up with a little difficulty - SearchMan wordlessly assisted him and ProtoMan was thankful that no one said a word about it - and brought up the list once again.

"What do you need us to do?" SearchMan asked him gently.

"Work," ProtoMan replied. "I need you all to help me with this work. Just . . . pick something and do it, I suppose. If- if you do not mind. I-I said I don't mind if you refuse, and I still-"

"SearchMan already said it, we'll help you out," Roll interrupted him. "So, come on, everyone! You heard him, pick something and do it!"

"Who put you in charge?" IceMan muttered.

Roll glared at him. "What was that?" she demanded.

"N-nothing," IceMan squeaked, half-cowering behind AquaMan, who giggled.

ProtoMan stepped back and allowed them all to scan the list properly. Gradually, each Navi selected something from the list and began to work on it diligently. In less than half a minute, everyone except SearchMan and MegaMan had chosen something. Both of them stayed near ProtoMan, clearly wishing to speak with him.

"Exactly how long has it been since you and Chaud last got any sleep?" SearchMan asked him carefully.

"I . . ." ProtoMan realised that he had lost track of how many sleepless days and nights it had been. "I don't know," he confessed.

"You really need to go into sleep-mode," MegaMan told him. "Why don't you leave this to us for now, and-"

"No," ProtoMan said, cutting him off. "I need to finish any work I started, and I need to make sure Chaud stays awake."

But MegaMan's words had some effect on him - suddenly his vision swam, and he swayed on his feet. It was only SearchMan and MegaMan grabbing his arms that stopped him from collapsing where he stood.

ProtoMan waited for the dizziness to pass, then forced himself to stand up straight. He held out a hand and a digital recovery chip materialised there, which he quickly downloaded. It took a moment to take effect, and when it did, he hardly felt any better. These recovery chips weren't doing their job properly, but if he could only have a little bit of extra energy for a few minutes, that was fine.

His friends and fellow Net Savers were watching him with unreadable expressions.

"And how many recovery chips have you downloaded to keep yourself from collapsing?" SearchMan asked.

"I have lost count. It's in the low hundreds, I believe," ProtoMan replied as honestly as he was able to.

"You need to sleep," MegaMan told him firmly.

"I need to finish this work. I will sleep once I am certain Chaud's workload is at least manageable."

Without another word, he turned away from them and went back to the school project he had been working on before his friends had appeared.

He knew that was not going to be the end of it, but thankfully SearchMan and MegaMan did not press the issue any further for now. They too chose something from the list and began working on it, and occasionally when ProtoMan would glance around to check how everyone was doing, he would catch them watching him out of the corner of their eyes.

No. He was not going to sleep until everything was done, otherwise Chaud would never be able to sleep either.

For the rest of the day, the group of Navis worked in silence. The only think that broke that silence was ProtoMan's occasional trips into the real world to wake Chaud up, but by the end of the third hour, the Navis had grown used to it and hardly looked up anymore.

With ten Navis and one human working, the list gradually grew smaller and smaller until, finally, there were just two things left. Those two things were IPC-related and could only be done by Chaud himself, so ProtoMan waited until Chaud had finished with his current project before wordlessly putting the assignments in front of him.

He assisted where he could, which was almost everywhere - in the end, even though Chaud was supposed to do these himself, ProtoMan ended up doing almost all of the work himself, with a little bit of assistance from his friends.

Mindlessly, Chaud went to go for the next assignment, but paused in confusion when nothing came up.

ProtoMan once again activated the hologram program - this time, not to force Chaud to stay alert, but for a much better reason.

"There is nothing left for you to do," ProtoMan informed Chaud gently, when his operator looked at him for an explanation. "All work has been finished, you can rest now. If anything urgent happens while you are asleep, I promise I will wake you."

That was half a lie - unless it was world-threatening, ProtoMan was not going to wake Chaud up for anything.

Chaud stared at him for a long moment, and then slumped in his seat, eyes finally sliding shut. Once ProtoMan was absolutely certain his operator was finally asleep, he went back into the PET.

The second he went back in, he stumbled and fell over onto his backside, head drooping.

He only allowed himself half a moment before remembering that his work was still not yet done, and he pulled up his own list just as SearchMan crouched in front of him while the other Navis hovered nearby uncertainly.

"What's this?" SearchMan asked, distracted by the new list. "I thought Chaud's work was done."

"It is," ProtoMan half-mumbled, speaking with some difficulty now. "This is my list, not his. I need to finish this."

"No," SearchMan told him sternly. "I do not care how much work you have to do, you're going to go into sleep-mode even if I have to knock you senseless with my gun. GutsMan."

GutsMan lumbered over, peering down at ProtoMan with worried eyes. It surprised ProtoMan how large GutsMan was - he had never thought about it before, but somehow, seeing GutsMan from this perspective made the large Navi seem even bigger.

Was that his depleted energy speaking? Or had he just finally gone insane?

"Put him on a datablock, and watch over him - make sure he goes to sleep and stays asleep," SearchMan told GutsMan.

"Gotcha, guts," GutsMan agreed.

He reached down a took hold of ProtoMan, easily fitting his body into his giant hands, and carried him over to a nearby block of data before carefully setting him down on top of it. Then GutsMan sat down and took up watch over ProtoMan.

Just before darkness took ProtoMan under, he heard SearchMan speaking to the other Navis.

"Alright, same deal as last time - pick something to do, and do it."

And then, like Chaud, he finally went to sleep.

OOOOOO

The previous chapter focuses more on setting this 'part' up, and this one focuses more on ProtoMan doing his level best to self-delete via energy depletion. The poor guy needs a damn rest (Chaud even more so), and luckily he's realised that he has friends who are more than willing to help him out.

Don't quote me on how Navi exhaustion works, since I'm mostly just going by that one episode of Beast where MegaMan stays up all night to play with Trill and ends up looking like the blue version of Dark MegaMan.

In this case it's a little more extreme, since ProtoMan and Chaud have been up for literal days and they've had pretty much zero breaks. Like I said in the last chapter, Chaud was basically just running on coffee and ProtoMan's shouting, and it's shown in this one that ProtoMan's keeping himself awake via recovery chips and sheer force of will.

In the narration, ProtoMan mentions that the recovery chips aren't working properly - they actually are, it's just that his energy is so low that the recovery chips can't give him enough of a boost to keep him active for more than a few minutes.

Basically, this 'part' shows you guys how hard Chaud and ProtoMan have to work, and also gives me the excuse to write some adorable fluff between the Navis.

I'd also like to point something out that I find pretty funny - SearchMan is essentially treating ProtoMan like a little brother or something, but ironically ProtoMan is probably one of the oldest NetNavis on the planet, going by this canon's explanation of his origins as Proto-13.

But yeah, this 'part' is done, and next 'part' . . . hmm . . . Well, I think we'll have an action one, this time. I'm not sure what it'll be called yet, but since it's action-based, expect Cross Fusion to show up - and that means colourblind Chaud and ProtoMan again. Hands up who likes that headcanon!

*raises hand*

Oh, I'm not allowed to raise my hand because I'm the one who said it? Oh well, too late.

Read and review!