Lividity and Ribbon returned to their small fortress in Internet City. Lividity sat down in its throne and looked at the floor thoughtfully.
"What are you thinking about, Lividity-sama?" Ribbon asked in a cheerful voice.
"Why is that human un-affected by our plans? What makes him so special?" Lividity mused. It wasn't angry or upset, rather, it was puzzled and the last two meetings failed to tell it any more about the human other then he could possibly pose a threat at some point.
"Can't we just ask?" Ribbon wondered.
Lividity looked at Ribbon; it was amazing how the simplest ideas might just be the best ones. "Maybe, in a little bit dear."
"So we can go play again?" Ribbon asked.
Lividity smiled, "Soon."
"Yay!" Ribbon cheered and twirled around excitedly.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"Find anything?" Netto asked dully.
"No," Rockman answered in the same voice.
Blues and Searchman's lack of an answer told Netto and Rockman what they needed to know. Both Rockman and Netto sighed at the same time and Netto tapped on the keyboard. "This is not helping. Obviously none of the equipment here can help us," Netto said.
"Yeah, but what else can we do?" Rockman asked. "Wait for Lividity and Ribbon to come and 'play' again?"
"Not a good idea," Netto said.
"Then what? What do we do?" Rockman asked.
Netto sighed, stood up and stretched. "Well, I need to sleep," he said. "It's about 2 in the morning."
Rockman looked at the clock and nodded. He didn't even realize what time it was. "All right, night Netto-kun."
Netto yawned and said "Night," before leaving the room.
After a few more hours of looking for any sign as to what was brainwashing the humans Rockman pushed himself away from the computer and went limp in his chair.
"Rockman?" Blues asked.
"Netto-kun is right," Rockman muttered while pressing the heels of his palms on his eyes. "This is pointless."
Blues and Searchman turned away from their computers. "Then what do we do?" Searchman asked.
Rockman let his arms drop over the chair arms as he stared at the ceiling. "I have no idea," he whispered.
There was a crackle of electricity and a small warning light came on telling them that the firewall had just been breached. "They're back already?" Searchman hissed.
Rockman sat up as quickly as he could and ran to the door. Blues and Searchman followed him to the end of the hall where Lividity and Ribbon were waiting for them.
"Ah, where's the human?" Lividity asked.
The three navi's remained silent and scanned their opponents to see if anything had changed.
Lividity smirked, "So, you want to play again?" it purred.
Rockman, Blues and Searchman all fell into defensive positions.
"Yay!" Ribbon cheered and sliced off two even portions of her ribbons with her hands. Then she brought her hands together and spread them apart until a thin and very deadly looking sword was in between them.
The resounding explosion over head shook Netto out of his nap and onto the floor. "What?" he babbled, trying to get a grip as to what was going on.
There was another explosion and another shake that brought Netto to his knees. "Rockman," he muttered and ran out the door.
OOOOOOOOOOOO
Blues and Ribbon were both parrying and bouncing off one another in a frantic sword fight. Meanwhile Searchman and Rockman were trying their best to keep Lividity at bay. It grinned and seemingly vanished from one area only to reappear in the next with little effort.
"It's so fast…" Rockman said while trying to guess where Lividity would end up next and started to shoot there.
Searchman couldn't even use his scope gun because of the speed. He too was shooting randomly at a target that may or may not have been there.
"You're pretty good," Ribbon said to Blues in a small voice. Then she viciously pushed him back and slashed at his stomach, connecting and opening a large gash. Blues fell to the floor, a steady stream of pixels flowing out of the wound around his hand. Dream giggled and brought her sword to her lips, "But not anywhere near me."
"Blues!" Rockman yelled. He wanted to retreat to help his friend but Lividity kept coming at them with small attacks that never connected but were close enough to keep them where they were.
"Damnit!" Searchman yelled. "Lividity is toying with us!"
Lividity appeared in front of them and smirked, "Ah, so you finally figured that out. My you are slow."
Rockman growled at Lividity and raised his buster; firing off a volley of shots and making the dark navi disappear once again.
Rockman took the split second opening and appeared in front of Blues, firing off more shots until both Lividity and Ribbon were at one end and he, Blues and Searchman were at the other.
"What do you want?" Rockman asked evenly.
Lividity crossed its arms and smirked, "Well, I want quite a few things actually. What do you want?"
Rockman blinked, faltered then raised his weapon once again. "I'm not going to play your mind games Liv…" he started but he was cut off by the creepy navi.
"You want to know why the humans are acting the way they are, don't you?" it asked. Ribbon giggled behind Lividity while Rockman, Blues and Searchman all looked somewhat dumbfounded.
"I know a lot more then you might think, and I'll let you know I'm several steps ahead of you at all times," Lividity said silkily.
Rockman growled and launched himself at Lividity in one last ditch effort to get the navi away from his friends so they could heal Blues. Lividity grinned and jumped at Rockman. Rockman's buster glowed a brilliant fuchsia but before he could fire Lividity slammed its hand over Rockman's buster throwing him off balance and making him fire into the wall. Then in mid air Lividity grabbed Rockman and threw him into the opposite wall by a hallway.
Lividity landed with the grace of a cat and Rockman pushed himself up painfully using the wall for support. "You're not much without your operator, are you?" it said.
Ribbon smirked at Rockman's pain and when Blues and Searchman tried to get up to help Rockman she pointed two swords at them. "Now you can watch your friend be deleted by Lividity-sama."
Lividity let its palm face up and a small dark ball of energy appeared in the center. "This is my finishing attack," Lividity said with a glint of insanity playing in its eyes. "It destroys constructed data but leaves anything else, meaning I could use this on a building in Internet City and kill all the navis inside but leave the building intact. You should be honored that this is how I chose to delete you," it said, its voice rising to a higher pitch.
Rockman slumped against the wall and tried to keep his balance. Lividity grinned and let the ball of energy grow bigger, "Pity, that I could never find out why you were so special. But threats should and will be removed at all costs…" it whispered.
"Rockman!" Blues and Searchman yelled.
Ribbon watched the ball of energy grow with delight playing in her eyes. "It's so pretty," she breathed.
Netto ran down the hall, hearing voice murmuring and talking. If he could just get there in time! He felt Rockman's fear; it was so great that he couldn't even contact him through thought. Something very bad must be about to happen to make him scared like that.
"And with that, I wish you a fond farewell," Lividity said and aimed the small energy ball at Rockman's chest.
Netto came out at the adjacent hallway just in time to see the ball being released. He had no time to think or even know what was going on. All he did was act on instinct to save his one and only older brother. "Rockman!" he screamed and elbowed Rockman viciously out of the way of the incoming attack.
"Netto-kun!" Rockman yelled as the attack hit his little brother. He saw Netto's eyes widen then he felt his programming log him out. "NETTO-KUN!" he yelled.
He, Searchman, Blues, Ribbon and Lividity were all in the main computer of Sci-Labs. "Ah, I must have caused an energy overload in the dimensional converters," Lividity said with a small voice of concern. It turned its gaze to Rockman and smirked, "You got lucky," it said and threw a small silver disk at them. "I look forward to the next time we meet." Lividity smirked, then vanished.
"Bye bye!" Ribbon said with a cheerful wave and followed Lividity.
Rockman linked himself to the nearest monitor and looked around desperately. "Netto-kun?" he asked.
"Rockman…" Searchman said softly as he didn't know quite what to say.
"He's… gone…" Rockman said, feeling his legs give out beneath him. "I don't feel him," he whispered.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
. I swear to god I know what I'm doing here.