Here's another chappy!
The Lonely Dark Knight
Chapter 12 – Storming the Hideout!
'This is bad!' The red-haired girl thought as she headed towards the Ministry of Science on her scooter. Her PET where her NetNavi Roll was resting was in her PET holder on her hip, 'Roll and Searchman didn't stand a chance against two Chaos NetNavis at once and they were almost deleted…'
Meiru made her way into the main building and straight towards Yuuichirou's lab, where Netto, Enzan, Laika, Yuuichirou, and Meijin were, but none of them paid attention when she came into the room. She stepped in and saw that the five of them were looking at the giant screen in the room, which showed the footage of the battles between Roll and Chaos Bombman, Searchman and Chaos Stoneman, and the battle between Thunderman and Chaos Laserman in Amerope's Internet City.
As Meiru got closer, Netto was the first to notice, "Meiru-chan!" Netto turned to Meiru's PET inside the holder, "I saw what happened. Is Roll okay?"
Meiru took out her PET from the holder, "She's fine, she's resting right now," Meiru showed Netto her PET, where Roll was sleeping.
"But that's not the end of it," The green-haired soldier said before taking out his PET and looked at the PET screen, "A mysterious data came into the PET when I plugged out Searchman before and I've had him analyze it."
"What does it say?" Enzan turned to Laika, who transmitted the analyzed data into Yuuichirou's computer.
The footage of the previous battles on the screen was replaced by a green background and a light green popup window. The cursor typed a message on the popup window and a map appeared on the bottom of the message. The five was shocked after reading the message on the screen, but Netto and Yuuichirou were the ones who were shocked the most.
"HIKARI NETTO AND ROCKMAN, IF YOU WISH FOR US TO LEAVE THE INNOCENT NETNAVIS ALONE, COME TO US FOR A FAIR ONE-ON-ONE BATTLE."
"A challenge message…" Netto said while still looking at the screen before Rockman's hologram materialized on his shoulder, "Rockman, it looks like the enemy wants us all along…"
Rockman nodded in reply and curled his hands into fists, "Those attacks were done purposely to draw us out… And they nearly deleted Thunderman, Searchman, and even Roll-chan! This isn't forgivable!"
"Netto, Rockman," Netto turned to his father, who was looking at him and Rockman worriedly, "Are you two planning on going?"
Netto and Rockman nodded, "We can't let them do as they like! Papa, we will beat them!"
"We can't let them take over or even delete more NetNavis! I can't let them hurt my friends anymore! I can't… I can't forgive myself if my friends got deleted by them!" Rockman raised his fist as he looked at Yuuichirou, "I can't stand looking at my friends being beaten up by them…"
"Alright, as much as I don't want you to go, we have no other choice but to let the two of you go. I will contact the other Net Saviors to help protecting the cyberworld from more of their attacks," Yuuichirou finally said and Netto walked away from the screen, only to be stopped by the younger scientist.
"Just a minute, Netto-kun," Meijin put his hand into his white lab coat's pocket and handed him a chip, "Take this, just in case you need it. The enemy seems to be toying with connection between you two along with the connection with the others."
Netto took the chip and looked at it before putting it into his chip holder, "Thank you, Meijin-san!"
"No need for formalities!" Meijin let out a sigh as he saw Netto running out of the room, 'I just hope that chip should cover for what I feared of happening…'
Netto skated through the streets and headed towards a big, worn out building. The roof had many holes on it, which were covered by blocks of wood. The paint on the walls was worn out due to the humid weather during rainy days. A few wooden crates with the letter 'P' on them were stacked on the right and left sides of the door.
As Netto put his skates away and walked closer to get a closer look, Rockman's hologram appeared on his shoulder, "This is the place according to the map, an abandoned factory. Be careful, Netto-kun!"
"You got it!" Netto replied before he walked into the factory building, "What's with this place? It's all dark!"
Netto looked ahead, turned to his sides, but he couldn't see anything. When he took a step forward, he heard the sound of a person snapping his fingers and light came from above the room. Stacks of items on Netto's right and left sides were seen covered by black cloth. Netto squinted his eyes to adjust from the sudden brightness and looked ahead to find the black and purple-haired figure sitting on a black throne.
"Welcome, Hikari Netto, Rockman!" The man stood up, revealing himself to be a man a bit taller than Netto. He was wearing a dark purple robe with a small 'P' letter in light yellow on the left side of his robe. The man looked down at Netto and Rockman's hologram, "My real name is Solo, the leader of Plutonian Syndicate!"
"So you're the mastermind behind all the attacks and those rampaging NetNavis!" Netto said angrily, "If it's us that you want, then leave the innocents out of this!"
"Tell me that again once you're done with the battling!" Solo turned to his throne and pressed a button on it, "Blade, it's time!"
A screen appeared in front of him with Blade on it, "Understood, Lord Solo!"
Solo pushed another button on his throne and the floor in front of Netto opened, revealing a NetBattle machine as it rose from underground. Solo looked at Netto and Rockman with a sly grin, "Plug in, Hikari Netto! Blade will be waiting for a battle with Rockman in this factory's cyberworld!"
"Alright, let's go!" Rockman nodded before his hologram disappeared, "Plug-in, RockmanEXE! Transmission!"
Rockman appeared in front of Blade, who was waiting for him in the cyberworld. The whole area was almost as dark as it was in the Uranet with the only difference was that there weren't any viruses in the area. Far behind Blade, a short cyber pillar stood with dim lights, making the area a little brighter.
Back in the Ministry of Science, the other operators were watching the whole scene. The attacks in Internet City had died down completely, leaving them to wonder if those attacks were truly decoys to draw to out Rockman and Netto into battle. As their NetNavis were recovering, including Thunderman, the operators had nothing else to do but watch the scene in front of the screen.
When Yuuichirou was helping to fix the NetNavis, he noticed something with them and turned to the operators, "Everyone, we might have a problem here."
"Is something wrong, Hikari-hakase?" Enzan asked and Yuuichirou turned to his computer.
"Your NetNavis… They're not waking up… And half of their data is missing!"
