Lazerwulf, the PET isn't always empty. Usually Slur just wipes the Net Op's current Navi out and presents him with an Asteroid (or is it 'a steroid'?)Navi.

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"LAN! IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN!"

"Oh… Five… more minutes…"

"That's what you said ten minutes ago!" MegaMan screamed from his PET. He knew this morning drill like the back of his digital hand; Lan would hem and haw, but finally give in and get up, provided that he(MegaMan) kept shouting.

The Blue Bomber studied the sleeping figure, trying to decide just how to wake his snoozing Net Op up. Finally, an idea presented itself. The idea was incredibly cruel- but justifiable.

"AUGH!" MegaMan cut loose with the most heart-wrenching scream he could muster. As he continued to scream, the Navi dropped to his PET's floor and crumpled himself up awkwardly.

As expected, Lan cracked an eye, but didn't seem to be that worried.

That meant that it was time for part two.

The Bomber moaned loudly, throwing a couple of raspy coughs into the works as well.

The brunette opened his other eye; although it was clear that his brain was still fogged, he trying to figure out what was happening.

"La… an…" MegaMan intentionally sputtered, contorting his face into a mask of pain. "Lan! L… an! He… help!"

"MegaMan?" The Net Saver jerked and sat up in his bed, sleep completely forgotten about as worry over his Navi flooded him. Swiftly he looked over at his PET; immediately his eyes widened in absolute horror.

"This is it… Lan…" The Bomber wheezed. "I'm… done for…"

"What are you talking about?" The brunette hurled himself out of bed and over to his desk where his PET resided. "MegaMan! What happened?"

"Last… Night…" The Navi muttered painfully. "You… received an E-mail… I… Opened it… And got attacked… by a … viral attachment… I… tried to call… for you… but… you wouldn't wake up…"

"What?"

"This is it Lan… I'm finished…" MegaMan twitched, his right leg beginning to dissolve. "It was… a blast… but I can't… hold on…"

"NO!" Lan gripped his PET in horror. How could this happen? He's slept right through something like that? And now his Navi was going to die for it? "This can't be happening! MEGAMAN!"

"Bye… Lan…" The Navi closed his eyes, and slipped away.

"No… no…" The brunette stared at the screen in disbelief. MegaMan was gone…

"BOO!"

"GYAI!" Lan grabbed his chest with his hands as he tumbled over backwards. With a loud 'thud' he slammed into the floor, sprawled out painfully.

The sound of MegaMan's laughter flooded the room.

"Oh… I really had you going…" The Net Navi howled with laughter as he ignored the if-looks-could-kill glare coming from his Net Op.

"Yeah, really funny. Give me a heart attack, why don't ya?" The brunette grumbled as he got to his feet. "That wasn't funny."

"'Funny' is in the eye of the beholder, Lan." MegaMan sobered somewhat. "How else was I supposed to get you up?"

"You haven't forgotten, have you?" Lan smirked as he realized that for once, he knew something that his Navi didn't. "It's summer vacation. I don't have to get up early."

"Actually, you do." The Bomber replied, "You forgot that you still haven't found an anniversary present for your parents, and now you're a day late. You lucked out last night when your father kept mom out so late that you could sneak off to bed and miss them."

"I'm working on it…" Lan sighed in defeat. He still hadn't found a gift, and that wasn't a good thing. "But finding anniversary presents isn't exactly my specialty. Do you have any ideas?"

"Actually, I do. I got my parents a nice basket of assorted flavored coffees for their anniversary."

The Net Op spun around, screamed another 'GYIAH!' as he stared into his PET screen; then fell over backwards to the floor in surprise for the second time that day.

"Mr. Famous!" Lan stared up at his PET's display, which was broadcasting a live feed of the aforementioned scientist. "How long have you been there?"

"I came in after the 'sneak off to bed and miss them' but before the 'I'm working on it'." Famous replied. "And it's just 'Famous'! All right?"

"Yeah, sure Mr. Famous." The Net Saver stumbled to his feet.

"Anyway…" Famous stifled a groan over the unnecessary title. "I'm not here to discuss your gift-giving problems. We've got a situation at the Eighth National Bank of Den Tech, some rogue Navi is trying to enter the bank's system. And we'd like you to take care of that."

"Not a problem! I'll take care of it in a jiffy, Mr. Famous!" Lan closed out the connection and hastily began dressing.

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"It's amazing." Famous sighed and placed his forehead in his left palm, while resting his left arm on his desk. "That boy can save the world, but he can't get my name right."

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"Almost there!" Lan pushed himself harder, he could see the Bank over the top of the hill, but that didn't mean that it was time to slow down.

The brunette whipped into the bank's parking lot, and eyed the set-up. The main lobby/office was located in the center of the building, with a row of ATM's on the left side of the building, and a drive through deposit station on the right.

Deciding that it would be faster to jack in from an ATM instead of going inside and running through the usual 'I'm-a-Net-Saver-on-a-mission' routine, Lan rushed over to the ATM's, spotted a terminal, and went to work.

"Jack in! MegaMan!" Lan whipped his PET Progress overhead, then he dropped it to chest level, sighted on the terminal, and hit the proper button. "Power Up! Let's fix some accounting errors!"

With the required burst of blue light, MegaMan transferred himself into the ATM, from there he continued on into the Bank's mainframe. Two seconds later, the Bomber crashed in the ground of the Bank's Network.

"See anything?"

"Not yet." The Bomber glanced around, his eyes probing every nook and cranny of the Network. The place was huge, and he didn't know how long it would take to find the rouge Navi in a place this big.

Breaking into a run, the Navi dashed off to his right and deeper into the Network. Common sense told him that he'd find the Navi over in the Accounting Department, where the numbers could be changed and money stolen digitally.

At it wasn't long before MegaMan saw signs that he was right.

As he ran along, the Bomber thought he sensed something behind him. Not quite sure what it was, but trusting his instincts, MegaMan changed course and leapt to his right.

A bolt of flame ripped through the spot that the Blue Bomber had occupied seconds ago.

MegaMan vaulted over in a mid-air somersault, rotating to face his attack. As his feet hit the ground, the Bomber's clenched his fist, causing his right hand transform into a round cannon-like object.

"Mega Buster!" The Blue Navi's eyes locked onto his attacker, a random Spikey. A burst of energy exploded out of MegaMan's cannon and shot through the air- and the virus.

The Spikey dissolved, blown into deletion.

"Watch your back!"

Acting on Lan's advice, the Blue Bomber leapt upward. Due to his maneuver, another Spikey shot underneath his airborne feet, if he had stayed on the ground he would have been nailed by the beast.

MegaMan hit the ground, his Buster firing blast after blast of energy. The Spikey lasted about two seconds underneath the barrage of firepower.

"Huh?" The Bomber blinked, realizing that a growing shadow was covering the area that he was standing on. On instinct, he hurled himself forward, vacating the area just before a large steel block crashed into the floor in the exact spot that MegaMan had been standing seconds ago.

The Bomber skidded to a stop, and turned around to face the steel cube.

It was then that the Navi realized that the cube wasn't a cube at all, it was a Net Navi. Two blocky 'L'-shaped sections broke off from the front of the cube and dropped to the ground, apparently they were his legs, and were connected to the base of the cube by two black, human-looking upper legs. Two square rectangles slid off from the front of the cube, sliding down to function as arms while the remaining cube pieces separated to reveal a red cylindrical body, and became armored shoulders that the arms connected to. A smaller cylinder rose out of the body, revealing a face with hard features and tight black helmet.

"So, you're the mighty MegaMan." The blocky Navi muttered, "It'll be a pleasure to squash you. The name's HardMan, and this will be your last battle!"

"I can't tell you how many times I heard that line." The Bomber kept his Buster pointed at his attacker. "And I'm guessing that you're the one that's trying to rob the bank blind."

"Exactly." HardMan sneered, "Now, let's see what you've got!"

"Hard Knuckles!" The blocky Navi's right hand clenched itself and transformed into a large golden steel fist. HardMan snapped his arm forward, causing his oversized steel hand to go flying across the arena towards MegaMan.

The Bomber saw the attack coming in plenty of time. Hurling himself to his right, he easily cleared the attack; the Hard Knuckle looked like it packed punch, but it was also super-slow.

"Let's take this guy out!" Lan whipped a chip out of his folder and slammed it into his PET. "Spreader, Battle Chip in! Download!"

The Blue Bomber clenched his fist as it transformed into a round cannon with eight stubby spokes projecting from the sides. As he brought his weapon up to bear at his opponent, MegaMan noticed grin creeping over HardMan's face…

And then something rock hard and solid rammed into his back. Recoiling from the impact, the Bomber crashed to the floor, hard.

Glancing up from his sprawled position, MegaMan saw the Hard Knuckled reattaching itself to HardMan's arm. Apparently, the attack had curved around to come back to HardMan, and nailed the Bomber since he had been in the way.

"That was easy." The steel Navi snapped at his downed opponent. "Now to finish you off!"

"Steel Slam!" HardMan rocketed into the air, hovering to a stop above MegaMan. Instantly, he had folded his body together into its Steel Cube state and was heading down towards his opponent in an effort to crush the smaller Navi.

Gravity send the cubed HardMan slamming down into his opponent- or rather, where his opponent should have been. The steel Navi crashed into the ground, demolishing the tiles beneath his body, but not making contact with the Blue Navi.

"What the-?" The renegade Navi unfolded himself and returned to his humanoid state. Glancing around in bewilderment, he tried to figure out just where his opponent had vanished to.

"You gotta love that Area Steal." MegaMan's voice came through the air from behind HardMan.

The steel Navi whipped around- to find the Blue Bomber standing behind him, his Spreader primed and ready for use.

"Bye!" MegaMan pulled the trigger, unleashing his weapon's firepower on HardMan. His attack ripped through the air, split into nine smaller shots, and slammed into the larger Navi. Smoke filled the air as the attack hit its target, obscuring the area.

"Yeah!" Lan pumped a fist in the air, "We got him!"

"You wish!"

Before the Blue Bomber could react, two golden fists shot out of the smoke. Caught by surprise, MegaMan took the attacks full force as they rammed into his stomach and chest and hurled him through the air like he was nothing more than a rag doll.

The Bomber crashed into the floor, deciding that this was not going well.

Lifting his head, the blue Navi caught sight of HardMan exiting the smoke. Somehow, the large Navi had blocked the attack and escaped unharmed.

"I've had enough!" HardMan bellowed. Taking advantage of MegaMan's decked position, the steel Navi leapt into the air above the Bomber. Folding his arms and legs in, HardMan assumed his cube position and careened downwards to crush his adversary.

"All right, it's time to start playing hardball!" Lan's fingers ripped a chip out of his folder, and fed it to his hungry Personal Terminal. "Metal Soul, Navi Chip in! Download!"

Instantly, the thick part of MegaMan's boots took on a red color, as a shining metal plate appeared below his knee. A circular blue chest-plate formed around his chest, as his shoulder pads became perfect red spheres and grew a pair of individual gears that ran around his shoulders. His gloves turned red and lengthened out to form a silver gear running horizontally around his wrists. A red plate appeared over the back of his hand, completing that part of the transformation. Finally, the yellow stripes on his helmet became gray protruding saw teeth, the outside edges of his helmet became red while the space between the saw teeth turned blue. A red mouth-guard slid over the Bomber's face, completing the transformation. "Double Soul: Metal Soul!"

"Time to break this brick!" MegaMan Metal Soul hauled back his fist and waited for his opponent to drop in close. At the last second before impact, the Bomber launched his armored fist skyward, ramming it into HardMan.

Amazingly, the force of impact knocked HardMan out of his cubed state and sent him flying backward through the air.

"Hard Knuckles!" HardMan twisted about and crashed into the ground standing upright. Instantly he snapped his arms forward, sending his fits flying through the air.

The Bomber clenched his fist as he watched the attacks race towards him. MegaMan prepared to counter-attack. As a sphere of energy surrounded his fist, the Bomber brought his arm back to swing.

"You're not the only one that packs a punch. Metal Break!"

The Blue Bomber launched his fist forward, ramming it into the Hard Knuckles. Overpowered, the two gold fists were sent rebounding back to HardMan, while MegaMan escaped unharmed.

"Now, let's put a dent in this guy!" Lan slammed another chip into his Terminal. "Guts Soul, Navi Chip in, Download!"

MegaMan's Metal Soul armor shattered away, revealing his new Guts Soul get-up. His boots were now much thicker and yellow. A red circular chest-plate encircled his torso, on which sat his two yellow spherical shoulder pads. His gloves had rounded out to resemble GutsMan's, turned yellow, and his hands had become black and over-sized. His power-pack had transformed into two red cylinders that rested on his back. And his helmet had become yellow and square, with a gray bar sitting the front of the helmet just above his forehead. "Double Soul: Guts Soul!"

As HardMan's forearms snapped back into place, he looked up to see MegaMan Guts Soul charging at him. The Navi's right arm was cocked back, and ready to deliver one powerful knuckle sandwich, causing HardMan to realize that he wasn't in the mood for lunch.

"It's time to send you back to the scrap yard!" The Bomber closed in and sent his fist flying towards HardMan's chest. Screaming a battle cry, MegaMan drove his fist home.

HardMan screamed as he was hurled backward through the air, half a second later, his body transformed into the words 'Log Out' and vanished as he left the Network in defeat.

"And don't come back!" The Bomber dropped to the ground and hurled one last insult after his defeated opponent.

"'Don't come back?'" Lan repeated in disbelief. "What kind of a line is that?"

"Hey, I can't come up with witty rejoinders all the time." MegaMan shrugged his response.