(aka NOT Another Colaborative Fanfic!)
By Marisa and Aria
Authors' Notes
(Aria): Um... This fic is great! Read it! Read it! Or I'll poke your eyeballs out with red hot needles!
(Marisa): She will, too! You'd better read it!
"A backup copy of me?"
"Yes indeed, Rockman." Netto's father, Dr. Hikari, answered. "Should you be seriously hurt, I'd want to be able to save you before you and Netto...well, died." His tone changed from informative to sad on the last word.
Netto, in attempt to cheer the moment, added, "No worries, Dad! Rockman and I can take on anyone!" He grinned. "We're a team, right Rockman?"
Rockman nodded agreement. "Of course!"
Dr. Hikari smiled as he opened the files that held the backup copy of Rockman, making sure everything was in order. His eyes widened as he read the status report.
"Dad?" Netto noticed his father's expression. "What's wrong?"
"Rockman," Dr. Hikari said in a worried tone, "Your backup copy's been corrupted by a virus...something named Plague."
Gasping in surprise, Rockman asked, "So what's going to happen? You can save the files, right?"
"No, that's not what I'm worried about." Hikari stated, "You're still alive, so I can save the files off of you. The thing that surprises me is...well, it's not acting like a normal virus would."
"So...what's it doing?" Netto asked.
"It looks like the virus is using the files to turn itself into a navi."
"How? How is that possible?" Rockman blinked, shocked... no normal virus should be able to do such a thing. Viruses were meant to destroy, or at the most, perform a few simple operations... not the complicated work of reformatting a Navi.
"I don't know, Rockman." Dr. Hikari frowned, working at the consol... and shook his head, drawing his hands away. "It's gone too far. We can only let it finish... or delete it now."
Netto blinked, rubbing his head. He felt... odd... warm, and tingling. He blinked at his arms, as a few red bumps suddenly broke out.... they reminded him a little of the last time he encountered poison ivy. And they itched the same, too... he frowned, scratching at them.
"Dad?" Netto called nervously, "Dad, I'm breaking out in hives, or something..."
"Hm?" Dr. Hikari looked over at his son, and gasped in shock. "Goodness, Netto, you were just fine a second ago!"
"I feel sick..." Netto added. He was dizzy. Confused. His head was pounding. It soon pounded onto the floor as he collapsed.
"Netto!"
"Netto-kun!" Rockman exclaimed. "Dr. Hikari...something's really wrong.."
"I can see that, Rockman!"
"No! It's not just that..." Rockman looked at his hands and arms, seeing nothing there. "Dr. Hikari, Netto's suddenly in horrible shape, and I feel fine!"
Dr. Hikari blinked... then suddenly looked at the monitor. It still showed the corrupted backup files... "Of course! The new Navi has the same DNA link to Netto..." He studied the readouts for a moment. "Thankfully, much weaker, or it would be worse. But we still need to get Netto down to the nurse..." He quickly knelt down, lifting up his son. He was hot, with a fever... "He should be alright, Rockman." At the moment, it didn't seem life threatening. Rockman watched worriedly, though, as Dr. Hikari carried them down to the nurse...
Awareness came in fits and spurts. Sometimes, he knew he existed, and almost who he was... at other times, he was nothing more than a void, a thing that existed without thought or reason.
But those moments were becoming fewer. He slowly stirred, opening his eyes to see the inside of a blue stasis tube...
Where am I? Why am I here?
He reached out to touch the tube, before he was dragged back into the chaos that was his activation...
The image of someone's face suddenly appeared in his thoughts..
Young boy. Eleven or so. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Netto-kun.
He knew who the boy was. Why? Had they met before?
Scattered memories...were these his memories? Whose were they? He couldn't remember gaining these memories; they were just...there.
...ockman...partner to netto hi...ari...eep him happ...y...
The files were scrambled. He was confused.
But for some reason, he was alive.
Being alive felt strange. He reached up again, trailing his fingers down the hard, cold inside of his stasis tube without opening his eyes. It was strange, but... pleasant.
He slowly opened his eyes again, and a need, a desire came to him.
I want out.
The tube was confining, stifling. He started searching it for a way to open it from the inside... but could find nothing.
How do I...?
He suddenly lashed out with a fist, and was rewarded by a spiderweb of cracks. And a pleasure. Breaking things felt right... like something he was meant to do...
"Dad...?" Netto's eyes opened. He was in a bed? When did he get there?
"Netto!" Dr. Hikari exclaimed. "Netto, are you all right?"
"I..." He blinked. "I'm fine." He sat up and rubbed his head, looked at his arms, and shrugged. "I guess it went away."
"Are you sure you're all right?" Dr. Hikari asked worriedly.
"I already said I was fine, dad!" Netto snapped. "How long does it take for a scientist to figure that out?"
Dr. Hikari was a bit shocked at first, but it soon changed to anger. "What do you think you're doing, speaking to me in that tone? I'm your father, and I want to know if you're all right!"
"Well I am." snorted Netto. He suddenly blinked in surprise. "Oh, god, what was that?!" He put a hand to his forehead. "Dad...I...I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me."
"It's probably the strain, Netto-kun." Rockman piped up, trying to keep the peace. "You had a very high fever."
"Yeah..." Netto rubbed his forehead. He did feel tired... Rockman's voice seemed to grate on his nerves, for some reason. He frowned, as a thought suddenly occured to him. "Dad, what happened to that new Navi?"
"I don't know, Netto. I was a bit more concerned with you." Dr. Hikari frowned, though, as he thought about it... "We'd better go see." Being inside the system already, the virus corrupted Navi could do a lot of damage, if it chose.
Right now, it wasn't choosing too. Or at least, not precisely.
"...The Evil Overlord List?" The new Navi grinned. "How evil and cool!"
Just before he would have accessed it, though, a new Navi appeared. This one blue... he tilted his head to one side. He couldn't see himself, and didn't know he was looking at an almost mirror image of himself...
"He looks like me!" Rockman exclaimed. "Except his color scheme is a bit different.."
"I do?" The new navi inquired, looking down at himself. He couldn't see his face.
There was a bit of silence as the new Navi inspected his hands, arms, body, legs; anything of his that was in his line of vision.
"I'm Rockman." The blue navi said finally.
The new navi's face held a shocked expression. "You are?" He had, for a bit, begun to think that he was Rockman...at least, that's what the memories were telling him.
"I'm-"
Plague.
"-Plague." He wondered where that thought came from.
Rockman blinked. He remembered Dr. Hikari saying... "Like the virus that infected you?"
"I was infected by a virus?" The new Navi tilted his head to one side, considering that. "...I see. Is that why I'm active?" Something, some part of the memories and programming, told him he was a backup... not to be activated unless Rockman was deleted.
"Yes." Rockman hesitated, then offered. "Why don't you come with me? I'll show you how to access the main screen, so you can talk to Dr. Hikari and Netto-kun." Plague's face lit for a moment, at the mention of Netto... then seemed to close down.
"They won't delete me, will they?"
"Of course not!" Rockman said, shocked. "Why would you think that?"
"Well, you're still active, I'm virus infected..." Plague shrugged. It was logical to him.
"Of course not." Rockman said firmly, taking Plague's hand. "Come on, just follow me... no one's going to hurt you."
Plague nodded uncertainly, and followed... but just in case, he surrepitously spun out a bit of darkness, that formed into a Mettool.
I can create viruses. He realized, for some reason excited and nervous about this.
But he was glad he had this ability at the moment. 'Rockman' said they wouldn't delete him...but he wasn't taking chances.
But on the way, Rockman spotted the Mettool. He immediately formed his Rockbuster and, with a single blast, destroyed it. Plague looked at him in a disgusted manner. "Why did you do that?!" He demanded, "He wasn't doing anything wrong!"
"But it was a virus. I had to destroy it." Rockman explained.
"I'm a virus, aren't I?" Plague spat. "Why don't you destroy me, too?!"
"But you're not doing anything wrong."
Plague frowned in disgust. He decided at that moment that he did not like Rockman.
I can't believe he doesn't see the logical problems with that. Plague thought, disgruntled, as they continued to walk. He kept spinning out viruses... but more appropriate, easily hidden ones. Shadow viruses, mostly. They would be his helpers and bodyguards.
When they reached the screen, though...
"Woah!" He exclaimed, peering up into two faces... Dr. Hikari, and Netto, who was crowding close, curious and interested. "This is really cool!" His gaze rested on Netto, and he smiled. "Hi, Netto-kun!"
It was like hearing a strange echo of Rockman...
Netto grinned. "Hey! How'd you know my name?"
Plague shrugged. "I'm not sure, exactly...the first thing I can remember is thinking of you, and knowing your name...kind of odd."
"That's so cool!" Exclaimed Netto.
"It's not that cool." Rockman murmured, feeling ignored. He looked up at Netto, "Netto-kun, this is Plague."
"I can introduce myself, you know." Plague hissed.
Netto nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Rockman, cut him a bit of slack!"
"Excuse me?" Rockman, "I was trying to be polite! I was just-"
"Oh, never mind." Netto rolled his eyes. His expression changed back to excitement as he looked at Plague. "Nice to meet you!"
Plague grinned up at him. "Nice to meet you, too! So, what are you going to do with me?" That was a question near and dear to his heart. Dr. Hikari looked at him thoughtfully, then checked his data.
"...Hm. You seem to almost entirely like a normal Navi. At least, you can interface like one... we should be able to download you into a PET."
"Cool!" Netto said, excited. "Can I have him, dad?" Dr. Hikari blinked, hesitating.
"Netto, you already have Rockman." He cautioned. Netto nodded, but...
"Yeah, but you said I have a DNA link with this one too? He has to be with me, dad. I can't let him go to someone else!" Plague listened to the conversation, interested, and grinned. He wanted to go with Netto. That felt right.
Although, he'd have preferred to have Netto to himself... but sharing him with Rockman wouldn't be that bad. Certainly better than not being with Netto at all.
"Oh!" Plague exclaimed suddenly, "What do you mean by DNA link?"
"Uh...hold on, let me think of how to explain this." Netto murmured.
"No need, I'll do it." Dr. Hikari offered. "You see, Plague, Netto once had a twin brother by the name of Saito. Unfortunately, Saito died of heart problems when they were both babies. I took Saito's DNA and created Rockman with it. It's a bit more complicated than that, but basically, Netto and Rockman are twin brothers and share a mind link. You're a copy of Rockman, so you have the mind like with Netto as well."
"A mind link? What's that?"
"It's sort of...well, a connection. Whatever happens to Rockman happens to Netto, and vice versa."
Plague grinned widely. "So that makes me Netto's brother!"
"No it doesn't!" Rockman snapped. "I'm Netto's twin, and that's not going to change!"
"Rockman, please!" Netto exclaimed. "I think this is cool! We're triplets now!"
"Triplets?" Plague's eyes widened at the idea, then he grinned as he had an idea. He suddenly grabbed Rockman, clinging to him playfully. "That makes you my brother, too! Hello, brother!"
"AUGH! Get off!" Rockman tried futily to dislodge Plague, as Plague tried to give him a noogie. An armored helmet made that a bit difficult, though. "Hey, stop that!" Rockman found his helmet snatched off, so Plague could assault his hair directly.
Netto laughed, grinning at the scene. It was ridiculous, and rather sweet. "Plague! Stop being a goof!"
"Awww, do I have to?" Plague had his arms around Rockman's waist, now, and gave puppy dog eyes to the monitor before nuzzling Rockman. That was a bit unfortunate, though, considering where his face was... Plague didn't realize that, though. His memories hadn't included information on that.
"I SAID GET OFF!"
Instinctively, Rockman twisted around into a position where he could successfully kick Plague in the stomach, sending the red, black, and gold Navi sprawling across the 'floor' of the net.
That was a mistake. Instantly, a group of shadowy viruses - the ones Plague had created earlier - jumped on top of Rockman, who cried out in surprise.
"Rockman!" Netto exclaimed, feeling twangs of pain as both of his brother's were attacked; the first one in the stomach as Plague was kicked, and the second time everywhere as the viruses ganged up on Rockman.
Plague lifted himself up on his elbows, scowling. He hadn't wanted to get knocked off, but... "HEY! Knock it off, you nuts!"
The shadow viruses immediately pulled away, as Plague summoned them back with a mental command. And one was immediately annihilated, as Rockman aimed and fired his buster. Plague snarled, leaping to his feet.
"And you back off, too, or I'll turn them loose on you!" He hissed angrily at his blue brother. Dr. Hikari stared at the screen, as understanding dawned on him.
"He controls the viruses?" That was a very, very unusual talent for any Navi... and Plague seemed to have absolute control, not the approximation most settled for. The viruses waited patiently, seemingly unconcerned that one of their number had just been deleted...
"What's wrong with you today, Rockman?!" Netto snapped.
"What's wrong with 'me'?!" Rockman exclaimed, "What's wrong with you?!" He pointed to Plague. "That...that thing is not our brother, Netto! Can't you see it? Can't you see what he is?! He's a virus! He controls them! You saw him sic them on me!"
"I did NOT sic them on you!" Plague exclaimed. "They reacted to protect me! I spawned them!" Plague blinked, then suddenly clapped a hand over his mouth as he realized that might be even worse.
"Spawned them? You created them?" Dr. Hikari gazed at the viruses, amazed. "That shouldn't be possible. I've never heard of a Navi doing such a thing." It was highly unusual. Plague shrugged, looking a little sullen.
"Well, I did... going to delete me now?" He favored Rockman with a glare. "I guess this is 'doing something wrong'..."
Rockman aimed his buster at the black, red and gold mirror of himself. "I don't have any objections." He fired at Plague.
"Rockman, don't!" Netto shrieked, but it was too late.
The shot hit Plague square in the chest. He cried out in pain.
So did Netto.