PART V: CROSS CONFUSION

"I know who you are!" muttered Rockman.exe as he directed an icy glare at Adver Man.

"These days, who doesn't?" said a human voice, sitting across from Netto in Densan City Middle School's cafeteria. "It's good to meet you. You must be the famously and blissfully oblivious Netto Hikari."

"You…you must be Kenishiro!" shouted Netto, continuing the flow of introductory name exchange, and confirming his oblivious nature by continuing: "What are you doing here in my school? Are you taking classes here? Man, you're stupid! Oh wait…I'm taking classes here too! But, I'm supposed to be here…Man, my head hurts!"

"I have no time to discuss the intricate philosophy behind what a sixth grader is doing in the sixth grade. I do not blame you for playing Rockman Zero when you're supposed to be hunting me. After all, body-wise, Ciel and Leviathan have got it going on."

Kenishiro made a perverted grin, then continued, "But I really can't have any interference from you in my ultimate mission of selling IPC's goods. You may have defeated Doctors Rugal and Wily, but my methods are quite different. I can say without ego that a Net Savior, one as oblivious to his opponent as you are, will never defeat me."

"How did you know I was a Net Savior?" Netto asked, completely taken aback by Kenishiro's current events awareness. "Did you hack into the Internet? Did you use some top-secret marketing spyware code? Did you reverse-engineer the entire Net Savior agency database? Or…don't tell me…you installed a Trojan Horse data miner in my PC?"

"My non-existent genius would love to take credit for that, but no."

"Then how did you get access to my Net Savior files?" Netto asked with a piercing, inquisitive stare that made him look so much more intelligent than he actually was.

"All I did was read your blogs online. Also, sometimes Enzan gets such a laugh out of them he sends them to me in company memos. Oh, and that one about Dekao's post-steak diarrhea was priceless. And tell me, does Meiru-chan REALLY beat you up that often?"

"Oh yeah, she does. I think she and I are getting to the point where…Well, now! I see Enzan's distraction techniques are a bad influence on you! So if you're at IPC, and Enzan's the CEO, and you work for IPC…you work for HIM!"

"Uhhh…do you think you could repeat that?"

"I don't think he could repeat that if he tried," Rockman replied, closing his eyes and nodding in certainty.

"Anyway," Kenishiro continued, "Enzan is only the starting point! Soon…"

"…we will go independent, so we can sell all the goods we can to everyone in the community, for any company we want! Think of all the sponsors I'll have on my crest!" Adver Man said happily, raising both of his chubby little arms.

"And that's evil…how?" Rockman appeared quite puzzled as he questioned the motives of Adver Man's backwards villainy.

"Of course it's evil, but not in the way we expected," replied Kenishiro. "Don't you remember what Meiru said about carpal tunnel syndrome, and having to delete all of those ads? Just like beer. It's not the alcohol itself that bothers you…it's the hangover you get afterwards."

(Of course, it is the post-drink bathroom break as well. Beer is never really drunk, just recycled.)

"How…how did you know Meiru said that?" At that moment, Netto had a flashback where he was standing in the front row listening to Meiru's speech…and Kenishiro was standing right next to him. "Uh, never mind."

"Now then…care to dance?" said Kenishiro with a maniacal grin.

"Umm…what?" Netto asked in a puzzling tone.

"Dance. You know, like, fight, dude! Let's get it on in the Blogosphere!" Kenishiro now had a new personal best: three outdated expressions in a single breath.

Netto felt a sweat drop would do the situation justice. "Are you for real?"

"Forget it. You obviously aren't uncool enough to understand what I'm saying. It's time for me to test the Spontaneous Cross Fusion Power of an Asteroid Navi!" Kenishiro dramatically busted out a Synchro Chip.

"You can Cross Fuse? Wait…first of all, where did you get that chip?" Netto asked, pointing at the gleaming chip in Kenishiro's hand.

"Craig's List," Kenishiro replied in monotone. "Cross Fusion! R-Adver Man!"

Kenishiro slotted in five Battle Chips and a Synchro Chip, and Netto watched in awe as he Cross Fused without the need of a Dimensional Area. When the transformation was complete, Kenishiro stood before him dressed in loose-fitting clothing reminiscent of a Chinese boxer's uniform. He had one of those cool Chinese conic sun shade hats woven in straw, colored in a deep, dark blue, complete with the "Ctrl-Alt-Del" lettering of Adver Man etched across its front edge. All of this would have been very impressive, except for the most comical part of his outfit: Adver Man's crest, which now read: "Buy From Me!"

"Most…stupid…Cross Fusion…ever…" Netto cringed, clenching his fists both in disgust and in holding back a sudden outburst of laughter.

"I'd like to see what YOU look like when you're Cross Fused! Possibly as dumb as a…Rock?"

"Netto…Cross Fuse already," Rockman muttered between clenched teeth. "He's going down."

"But there's no Dimensional Area! How will we do it?"

"The new Giga Class Processor Chip has a program called the Type R Code allows us to. We're going to pay that Kenishiro back for insulting my name!"

"Cash or check?" asked R-Adver Man, raising an eyebrow.

"IOU with NO INTEREST!" replied Netto, after which R-Adver Man frowned angrily. "Now then, you've shown me how stupid you look! Now, I'll outdo your stupidity!"

"You want to think about that one for a second?" R-Adver Man inquired, a huge sweatdrop manifesting on his forehead.

"Cross Fusion! R-Rockman!" Netto slotted in six Battle Chips, and Cross Fused with Rockman to become one. When the transformation was complete, not many things about Rockman had changed. R-Adver Man decided to confirm this by thinking to himself, "His own Navi, but with brown hair? Well, he did outdo my stupidity, but by lack of originality instead. He exceeded me so far…perhaps he really is a worthy foe."

R-Rockman transformed his left arm into a sword and rushed to attack R-Adver Man, when suddenly, Mariko-sensei popped up spontaneously between the two and cried, "HOLD IT! No battles inside school buildings! Especially not Cross Fusions!"

"Mariko-sensei? You know, you could have just gotten killed," R-Rockman blinked. "Shouldn't you be teaching class?"

After thinking to herself, "And shouldn't you be IN class?" Mariko pointed to her impressionable sixth-grade students, who were watching the battle begin from just around the corner. All it took was the mere mention of Cross-Fused Netto Hikari picking a fight on an elder to get them flocking to witness it. Granted, this was the typical middle school student mindset in Densan City Middle School, but Mariko still found it disruptive.

"If you have to do it, the old auditorium is the best place. We've been meaning to demolish it anyway."

Minutes later, the two forever-conflicting forces of good and evil stood apart from one another in a rusted and thoroughly worn school auditorium. R-Adver Man opened up the pre-battle dialogue session: "Say, I should warn you that I have nothing to lose in this fight. After all, a young child like yourself should really be cautious, since there's no doubt you already know the long-term side effects that happen when you Cross Fuse."

"Of course," R-Rockman replied. "Because the Cross Fusion draws its power from the operator, it will make me weaker after this fight, and perhaps even result in a coma."

"In other words, no prolonged activity. Just like…" R-Adver Man pointed at his crotch. "…you know."

"OF ALL THE…I'VE GOT MORE STAMINA THAN THAT!"

"Hehehe."

"So what's this about having nothing to lose? And what makes you think that the whole...ahem...thing you just said doesn't affect YOU even more than ME?"

Kenishiro grinned like a maniac as he said ominously, "I have no reason to live happily...after all, I'm past the prime of my life. I'm now hated by pretty much everyone. My manager threatened to fire me. On top of that..."

"Yeah?"

"...I'm married."

"You really DO have nothing to lose."

"You know, Netto, deep down inside, you and I are really the same."

"Yes, indeed we are, Kenishiro. We are both…"

R-Adver Man and R-Rockman expressed their resolve by bursting into an array of dazzling and passionate flame, signaling a terrible omen of a dreadful decisive battle to come. To add one final dose of fuel to the hungry flames of violence and combat, they continued in unison before rushing at each other:

"…EQUALLY STUPID!"

END PART V