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This Is Your Life
Chapter 3
~by Miss Marisa and Shimegami-chan
http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=13745
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"Rock?" Roll-chan's sweet voice called with concern.
"I'm over here." The former robot answered, "I'm just thinking."
"About what?" She asked, sitting down beside him.
"My home." Rock stated, "My family. Me." He clasped his hands and rested his chin on them. Staring out at the dazzling landscape of the Net, he added, "What if I'm stuck like this forever?"
Roll shrugged, "It's not that bad, being a Navi..."
"You would say that." Rock spat. "You don't know anything else! You don't realize how...how lonely this place really is! I don't even have one of those...what do you call them? Operators!"
Roll pndered that. "You have Netto-kun."
"That's true. But he's not my Netto-kun, he's the other Rock's - your Rock's - Netto-kun. I don't have nearly as close of a relationship with him as your Rockman did."
Roll decided to change the subject. "What's she like?"
"Who?"
"The Roll in your world."
"Oh." Rock tried to think of the right words. "Well, she looks a bit like you - blonde hair, and a few other subtle things." He paused and looked at her, trying to think of something else. And yet he couldn't bring himself to think of the other Roll right now...this one somehow grabbed his attention...she was so kind, and pretty...
He shook the dust from his mind and continued, "She's not as tall as you are, or as slender. Now that I think about it, it seems like everyone in this world is taller." He stopped and glanced at Roll again, to see if she was listening. He felt his face get a bit warm.
"Keep going!" Roll urged, "I want to know more!"
"Well, like I said before, she's just my sister...she's really sweet, and kind...always there when I need her...just like the rest of my family..." he trailed off as his voice cracked. "I don't know...what...what I'm going to do without them!" He quivered and clamped his eyes shut, trying to hold back inevitable tears. A sob escaped his lips.
He was crying.
"It's all right." Roll cooed with a smile, "Nobody's here but me. You can let it out."
She's so caring! Rock thought. Tears welled in his eyes and he buried his face in her neck, crying for what seemed like hours.
Netto Hikari sighed, tears dripping down to the pillow he was clutching. Usually, at a time like this, Rockman would be there to comfort him...
...But Rockman was gone. All that was left was another Rockman, one he didn't know, who didn't know him either...
With that thought, he clutched the pillow tighter. "Rockman, I miss you..." he squeaked.
He needed someone to talk to...maybe...maybe the new Rock would understand. After all, he most likely lost someone in the switch as well. It wouldn't hurt to ask.
He picked up his PET module and called, "Rock? Are you there?"
"Hi." Rock appeared on the screen. His voice was shaky, eyes bloodshot and face a bit pink.
"...Are you all right?" Netto asked.
"I-I'm fine." Rock rubbed his eyes. "I've been a bit...sad, you know?"
"I was crying too." Netto smiled.
Rock smiled back. "Netto-kun...I'm sorry. However this happened...I miss my family...I didn't mean to get stuck like this...I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"I took Rockman away from you."
"You didn't mean to."
"I know, but I still feel like a jerk. And I didn't do a thing!" He sighed. "Netto, if your Rockman really is in my body...I promise that my family will take good care of him...even if we're stuck like this forever."
Forever. The word hit both of them like a knife. They could be stuck like this forever.
"Thanks." Netto agreed. "I promise to take care of you, too. Everyone will."
Rock nodded. "Thanks...Netto-kun."
Netto cringed. "Rock...please don't call me that."
"Call you what?"
"Don't call me Netto-kun. It's...just not the same."
Rock nodded. "All right...how about Netto-san?"
Netto grinned and teasingly suggested, "Netto-sama?"
"Ha ha, no. How about just 'Netto'?"
Netto nodded. "Okay then, Rock. Just Netto.
"So what do you think of the 'Real World' so far, Rockman?" Roll asked. She and Blues were showing Rockman around the city.
Rockman couldn't stop staring at the tall buildings that surrounded him, as impressive as the NetCity he loved so much but so different... Humans of all ages were milling about and vendors were selling their wares on the sidewalks. The area was teeming with life.
"Rockman?" Blues asked, waving a hand in front of his face. "Blues to Rockman...! Come in, Rockman!"
"Eh? Oh, Blues... did you want something?"
"A bit dazzled, huh?" Roll smiled.
"Yeah, it's amazing! There are so many people!"
"Aren't there a lot of...uh - whatchamacallems? Navys? - where you come from?" Blues questioned.
"Navis. And yes, there are, but this is different somehow. Everyone's just so.... alive," he finished.
Roll nodded, taking this in. "Well, I guess humans do have a bit more of a soul than a computer program...no offense or anything, Rockman."
Rockman smiled. He was anything but a normal computer program, having been human once, but he understood. "None taken. There are some pretty lifeless Navis out there, I'll admit."
"Blues, for one," Rockman muttered to himself.
"What?" Apparantly the bioroid had better hearing than he thought.
"Aagh! Er, well, not you, the other Blues, the one from my world; he's sometimes a little..." Rockman scrambled for the right word. "....Insensitive?"
"Like how?" Blues was taking it a little personally.
"Ummm..."
Rock's thought was interrupted by a crash behind the trio.
"Well, well, well." An older voice hissed, as someone grabbed the back of Rock's shirt. "If it isn't the little impostor."
"Forte!" Roll gasped, stepping back.
Blues already had his arm cannon formed and was aiming it at the black and gold biroid.
"Forte!?" Rockman was just as skilled a fighter as his robotic counterpart, but he could not free himself from the enemy's iron grip. He gritted his teeth and struggled.
A crowd of people began forming around the four. As Rock struggled, Forte used his free arm to put Rockman in a choke hold, and then wrap the first arm around his chest. "Well, well - why don't you shoot me, Blues? Afraid you're going to hit the one pretending to be your brother?"
"How do you-" Roll started, but was interrupted by Blues.
"You little coward! Using someone else as your sheild like that! Let him GO!"
Rockman's face turned red. He wrenched his arm free an slung it back over his shoulder, aiming right at Forte's face. "Rockbuster!"
Forte cried out as the plasma hit him square in the face, letting go of his captive to clutch at the scorched area. "YOU SICK BITCH!" Forte spat.
"Hey! It worked!" The Navi hadn't really expected his Rockbuster to appear, but it seemed that the Rockman whose place he had taken had an identical weapon. He slowly raised it to aim at Forte's face. "What do you want with me?"
"Tch." Forte hissed, suppressing the urge to kill him. He ducked under Rockman's arm and grabbed him - again. "Ask Wily when we get to his fortress." He hissed in Rockman's ear, as he pressed the teleport button on his right arm. They disappeared in a streak of Black light.
"Rockman!" Roll screamed.
Blues was silent. I...I could've saved him! he gasped.
There was a ringing silence for a moment. Finally, one of the humans who were watching piped up: "Why didn't he do that in the first place, anyway?"
"Okay, this is Glyde, Numberman, Gutsman... something wrong?" Roll shot Rockman a worried glance.
"... Gutsman...?"
"De gutsu?"
Roll caught a glimpse of the confusion in Rockman's eyes. "What? What is it?"
"Uh, well," Rock began, a bit nervous, "The Gutsman in my world was kind of...you know, evil..."
At this, Gutsman looked confused. "Me?"
"Well, here, he's a good friend of Rock's," Roll assured him.
"I know, you already proved that." Rock blushed, and he didn't know why.
"Please to make your acquaintance, Rockman-san," Glyde said with a smile. "I am Glyde, and my operator is Yaito-sama."
"I am Numberman, partner of Higure Yamitaro," Numberman said in turn.
"Hajimemashite!" Rock smiled in greeting. He looked around. When he was in his own world, he was sort of a breakthrough...one of the first of his kind. He stood out. But here, as a Navi, among others of what he now was...he felt and odd sense of...what was the word? Belonging.
Gutsman, on the other hand, continued to look flustered by the concept, and probably the whole predicament in general. "So this Rockman comes from another world where I'm evil, and normal-Rockman is missing... I don't get it, de gutsu...."
"None of us do," Netto assured him from up above. "I'm sure we'll figure it out."
"Has your Gutsman ever beaten you in a fight, Rockman?" Dekao asked excitedly.
Rockman blinked. "Um... I don't think so..."
"Oh." The bigger boy looked disappointed.
Rockman felt a little sorry for the boy. "Of course," He added quickly, "It was because I had aquired different attacks before fighting him. Why, if I went up against him as my normal self, I probably wouldn't stand a chance."
Roll smiled understandingly, and Rockman blushed.
Beep! Beep!
"Netto, I think you have an email." Rock blinked. How the heck did I know that?
"Oh! Then open it!" Netto exclaimed.
Rock looked around. "Um...how do I do that?"
"Oh!" Roll exclaimed, "Here, let me show you."
She brought up a control panel (I'm making this up XD), keying in a few letters, and a large screen with text appeared over their heads. Rockman read the message aloud.
"To: Netto." Rock read aloud. "From..." He paused, and nearly choked on the last word, "...Wily."
Everyone let out a gasp.
Rock continued. "Subject: I have Rockman."
A look of concern crossed everyone's faces, especially Roll, Netto, and Rock.
Rock gulped as he read the short email aloud. "Come to my base in the old WWW fortress...once you get there, you'll know the way."
Silence followed.
"Is that all?" Glyde asked.
Rockman nodded, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. "Y-yes, that's it."
"How's that possible?" Meiru asked fearfully. "How could he know that this Rockman isn't the real one?"
"I thought that old base was destroyed," Yaito said.
Rockman groaned. "Wily's bases never stay destroyed... I would know, I've had a number of them fall on me."
Before anyone could ask the bioroid what the comment meant, Netto stumbled to his feet, clutching his head. "Augh...it...hurts..."
Meiru leapt to her feet. "Netto!?"
"Something...happening..." Netto swayed and fell forward in a dead faint, Dekao catching him just before he hit the table. The two girls moved to help him while the Navis looked on in confusion.
"Hikari-kun! Are you all right?" Yaito snapped, shaking his shoulders.
"Yaito-chan!" Meiru scolded.
The movement was just enough to jar the brunette and he moaned, fists clenching in pain. "It's so hot...Saito-niisan..."
"Netto? Netto, are you all right?" Rock had only known Netto for a short time, but despite that, they were already close friends. He turned to Roll. "Roll-chan! What's going on?!"
"Saito-niisan?" Meiru-whispered to herself. "Netto, wake up! Is something happening to Rock?"
"His twin," Roll explained. "Netto and our Rock are twins, and they share a mind-link. When one gets hurt, the other feels it."
"Something must be happening to Rockman-san," Glyde said quietly.
"Twins?" Rock gasped. "Dr. Hikari...he told me they were brothers, but I didn't know...how is that even possible?"
Saito--that's Rock's real name--died young," Meiru explained. "Of a heart condition, I think. Dr. Hikari used his DNA to create Rockman, and he's the closest thing to a human the doctor could get. In the the battle with Wily..." She took a deep breath and continued. "Rockman was badly injured, and to save him they were able to create a link between their life forces. But it means that when one twin is hurt the other is too--and if Rock dies, Netto dies with him."
Rock's breath got caught in his throat. "He...he'll die?" He gasped, feeling what humans call his heart in his stomach.
A long time ago, Rock had found out that he and Blues could be considered twins, if you stretched the term a bit. But he never had a connection like that with him...nor did he really want to.
"We've got to save him." Rock said, determined. "I don't care how; we've just got to."
"Right," Dekao snapped. "We have to get to the World Three base!"
"No... I can do this..." Netto forced his eyes open. "By myself..."
"You're crazy!" Meiru cried.
"You're hurt, de gutsu!"
Rockman locked eyes with Netto. "I will help you," he said quietly. "Just tell me how."
Netto sighed, defeated by the pain. "The Metrorail... there's a secret entrance on the school grounds. That's how to get to the base."
"I can take us there," Roll said excitedly. "I remember the Net link."
Meiru nodded at her Navi. "Go ahead, then."
"You'll have a hard time getting there in that condition, Hikari," a mild voice said.
Netto struggled to sit up. "E-Enzan!"
Rock looked up at the boy who had just entered. "He reminds me a lot of...no, it couldn't be..."
"I'd like for an explanation as to what's going on." Another new voice had appeared. "Why is Wily getting us involved in your affairs...and why does he claim to have Rockman when you're clearly right here?"
"Blues?!" Rock exclaimed
A/N (M) Well well well this one was quite long. God, it's like, mindight. I'm tired. And my feet hurt. -_-; Oh well, stuff is gonna happen. Yes, you must love that wonderful stuff. Marisa needs sleep and a foot massage. Anything you'd like to say, Shi?
Shi-chan: Not a lot. XD Don't forget to review, minna-san! *slinks off to play Mega Man 3*