Hello once again, I've finally returned again!
Long story short, time got away from me with all the stuff I'm working on right now and I've mostly been updating at half the speed I should be so sorry about that, this is actually maybe the fourth time I've updated a story since my last posting on this specific one.
Also, a bunch of games I wanted released one after another and I started playing them and then I got back into Pokémon which somehow managed to lead me back to Megaman/Rockman…
It's complicated.
Speaking of which Megaman 11 is finally a thing?! Only took them what? Eight years since the last game? Hopefully they don't screw it up.
But anyways, new chapter is here! And good news, it is nearly twice as long as the last chapter! All you have to do is worry about enjoying it, I have to deal with the rest of it.
Without further delay, let's begin!
Rockman POV, Telephone Line Local Network…
Rockman groaned as he pulled himself out of the rubble pile he was in. Thankfully his shield had taken the initial brute force of the blow, unfortunately there was enough power left to knock him around more than he was comfortable with. Taking a moment to collect himself, he then stood up and surveyed the damage to the area.
He winced as soon as he got a good look. The damage was horrendous, heck, there were entire sections that were completely missing! Just gaping holes in the world with nothing within, just a gaping maw in the data leading into nothingness, scary.
On the bright side the viruses were all gone, not a single one was left after that final showing, on the downside, their work was obviously done, even if they weren't still around afterwards. Hopefully they wouldn't have to deal with any viruses like those anytime soon, they had to figure out a way to beat them, without all of them blowing up afterwards.
Still, with the viruses gone, that meant that repairs could start and hopefully the phones would be working again, even if it took whoever got sent to make repairs a bit longer than would have been hoped. At least there hadn't been a Net Navi leading the attack, that would have made the fight a lot harder, with both a proper opponent as well as a bunch of viruses that could use some sort of watered down form of Battle Chips.
While looking over the mess Rockman realized something, or rather someone was missing from the seen. His eyes went wide with panic and he ran forward towards where he had last seen his brother before he had engaged the so-called "commander" virus.
"Lightman!" He called out, hoping that he would answer. He should have found a way to let his brother know when he engaged that lead virus, that way they could have at least been in the same area, he had managed to get some warning, Lightman had gotten no such luck.
Rockman stopped in the midst of several fizzling chunks of solidified data, jarred loose from the force of the explosion. He looked around desperately, seeking to catch a sign of light blue. When no such color present itself he cupped his hands around his mouth and called out again, louder, this time. "LIGHTMAN!"
His voice echoed across the now empty digital terrain and Rockman began to feel the sense of panic growing worse. The tightness in his chest began to get uncomfortable as he struggled to remain calm. He took a deep breath and cupped his hands to shout again when he heard a faint sound echo back to him after his own cry had faded.
Pinpointing the direct of the sound he ran off towards it, full speed. It only took him a few moments to reach the location but it felt far longer, even with his internal clock indicating the exact time that it had taken him to reach the spot.
He found himself at the edge of one of the giant holes and the panic began to blossom again, he shoved it down, struggling to remain calm. "Lightman!" He called his brother's name once again, trying to keep it as clear as possible, without letting his worry boil over into it.
"Down here!" His brother's voice called back, from below the edge of the ridge. He was very clearly having a much harder time remain calm in this situation, a quick glance over the edge revealed why.
His brother looked to be in good shape overall, a slight singe covered his suit in places but other than that he didn't seem to be physically damaged. Lightman's real problem seemed to be the fact he was struggling to hold onto an oddly geometrical ledge that seemed to run around the edge of the drop before it eventually fell off into nothingness.
"Hold on a second!" Rockman called down to his brother, "I'll help you up!"
Lightman chuckled weakly, "Oh don't worry, I'll just be hanging here." Another weak chuckle which quickly ended as the lighter blue Navi glanced down, "Could you please hurry though? I think there used to be more ledge below me but I don't see them now."
Rockman nodded understanding the severity of situation. His brow furrowed in thought, he didn't want to risk using a chip that would affect the terrain for fear of making the damage worse and making Lightman's situation all the more precarious. That left him stuck to the handheld battle chips, which unfortunately almost solely consisted of weaponry.
The cannon and other gun chips would be completely useless in this situation, most of the elemental attacks too. As for the melee weapon chips… actually maybe that just might work, it was risky but he didn't have many other options right now.
"Hold on!" He told Lightman, ignoring the sarcastic and clearly nervous response, "I'm going to come down on the ledge and pull you onto it, then I'll boost you up and you can pull me up then."
"Sounds like a plan!" His brother announced even as the wall near his feet seemed to fall apart into pixels.
"Don't move!" Rockman warned as he activated the sword chip and carefully swung himself over the cliff, stabbing the glowing blade into it to both steady and slow his descent to the lower ledge.
He slid down faster than he intended and nearly lost his balance, thankfully his sword anchored him into the wall where it was impaled. He sighed in relief and carefully lowered himself and reached out to grasp his brothers hand.
Lightman saw this and quickly made to grasp it, nearly losing his remaining grip on the difficult to grasp with Rockman there to help he was able to pull himself up onto the small ledge. His brother let out a quick relieved sigh, pressing himself against the wall.
"Okay climb up on my shoulders, and pull yourself up." Rockman directed, keeping his sword activated.
"Hold still." Lightman warned, "I'll try and be careful." Rockman gave a grunt of acknowledgement as Lightman pulled himself up onto his shoulders. There was a slight increase in pressure when his brother pushed off and grasped the edge of the pit, but Rockman let his shoulders sag a bit anyways when he had done it. Now that his brother was safe he just had to pull himself up, normally this height wouldn't be a problem but with the shortness of the launchpad he wouldn't be able to gain the proper height.
He glanced up to see his brother reaching down but it was obvious he couldn't quite reach, when Lightman voiced such he also suggested the solution. "Can you jump a bit? I should be able to reach you then." He solidified this statement by reaching his other hand over the edge so he could make sure to catch his brother.
An uncomfortable fuzzing sensation reached his feet and he didn't need to look down to know the edge had begun to dissolve, he took a deep breath and deactivated his sword and quickly hopped up, making a grab for his brothers hands.
Lightman caught him as he said he would and then began scrambling backwards trying to pull him over the edge of the hole. When they were both on solid and safe ground they sat down hard and relaxed for a moment.
"Wha… what was with this that explosion? Lightman managed after a moment.
"I found the lead virus, when I deleted him the rest of them all kind of just…" Rockman waved his hand in a gesture at the destroyed terrain around them.
"Blew their tops?" Lightman suggested.
"Yeah, that." Rockman nodded. "I hope we don't have to deal with viruses like that again, at least until we can figure out how to beat them without them all exploding."
"Good idea." Lightman agreed pulling himself to his feet as Rockman did the same. They looked out over the horribly damaged network space around them. "Talk about fatalistic loyalty." He muttered.
Rockman nodded in agreement even as his thoughts trailed elsewhere. He stood thinking for a moment before he spoke up. "I don't get it."
"What do you mean?" Lightman asked oblivious to the problem.
"Well first there's the hacker attack on the PETs, then the virus's here, except that might not be related, but it's still an uncomfortable coincidence." he paused to let that sink in. "But the virus's, they could have done that at any time, why wait until after I destroyed the leader? They could have done that before anyone else got here and been done with it. Why make a big showing with the elemental attacks and everything?"
Lightman looked troubled now that he had explained out his line of thinking. "Maybe whoever sent them expected an official net battler to be sent and wanted to try taking us out. Or maybe the commander panicked when you were about to delete it and decided to be a sore loser."
"Maybe…" Rockman conceded but decided he would bring his concerns up when they got back to Scilabs. "I can't help but feel this is just starting."
"Oh great, I did jinx it didn't I?" Lightman sighed and got a depressed look on his face, clearly thinking of their earlier conversation about threats they had to take care of.
Rockman chuckled and patted his brother on the back. "I'm sure it's not your fault Lightman, let's get back though and let everyone know what happened."
"Right." Lightman agreed
General POV, Scilabs…
"I see, thank you for dealing with viruses at least, things would have been worse if they had gotten away, I'm you two are alright." Mejin told the twin Navis when they were finished reporting what had happened.
"I'm sorry we weren't able to stop their plans completely." Rockman apologized again.
"Without you it probably would have been worse, they damaged one part of the telephone lines, a large portion unfortunately, but likely they would have done more damage if you hadn't stopped them there." The man paused with a troubled look. "But you said these viruses were using special attacks?"
"Yeah." Lightman answered this time. "Like some kind of watered down form of battle chips."
"Well that gives me a lot to think about." Meijin sighed and shook his head. "Nevertheless well done, and I'll let the others know to keep an eye out for any more viruses like that."
"Make sure to tell them to try and deal with as many as they can before they delete the leader." Rockman warned. "There are way too many to destroy all of them but if you cut down the numbers a bit you might be able to limit the damages."
"Thanks for the tip." Meijin agreed with a nod and slight smile. "I'll let you two know if anything else comes up." And with a quick goodbye to the twins father and NetOps in the room, he was gone.
With their duties dealt with, Lightman turned to their father. "How's Tomahawkman?"
Dr. Hikari blinked in surprise at the sudden change in subject. He quickly answered though, "He's doing fine I repaired the holes in his program that resulted from the disconnect, but we still haven't been able to identify the defect in PETs but I'm working on it. he's going to be staying on the SciLabs system until then though."
"Guess that means we can finish our match then." Tomahawkman told Lightman inside the net.
"Well we'll see if you can keep up without your battle chips, but I'll make it even, I'll fight you with both my hands tied behind my back." Lightman smirked at the larger Navi.
"Oh you are so going down!"
The other Navis and even some of the NetOps just sighed, some things seemed to never change.
General POV, Unknown Location…
Four figures sat around a table watching the battle between Rockman, Lightman and the swarm of viruses. The video continued until the viruses detonated, at which point the feed completely cut off.
"Well that could have gone better." The figure at the far end of the table, the leader of the team, stated.
"The virus works," a skinnier figure to his left pointed out, "even if it was destroyed the concept definitely works."
"Unfortunately, that was our only working prototype!" The third figure, and the only feminine one, snapped at him in an angry tone.
"Ah, but we have the blueprint still, besides if we need more resources we can just have Lurch go and get them right buddy?" the skinny figure asked the final member of the group.
"Hrm." The last and largest figure grunted, his bucket-like helmet rattled slightly with the sound.
"See, he's got it covered!" The previous speaker laughed. "You shouldn't worry so much Reaper."
"I worry because failure is not an option, Hermes." The woman glared across the table at him, her features hidden by her mask.
"The Commander knows things like this take time, besides, doesn't he have his own project right now?" Hermes commented with disinterest.
"Well the Commander isn't here right now is he?" The leader mentioned. "Therefore we should do our best in his absence to show our own merit rather than rely on him."
"Exactly sir," Reaper nodded as Hermes crossed his arms and sighed.
"It is regrettable the Swarm Virus was unable to achieve its mission but we can't expect every plan to work, especially at this stage. Therefore we must do our best to make sure as many as possible to work." the leader explained. "For starters, who were the two… Navis that stopped the virus?"
Hermes flipped open a device on his wrist and tapped a few glowing keys and two new images appeared on the view screen. "Rockman EXE and Lighman EXE both designed by Dr. Yuichiro Hikari, one of the leading experts in Net technology. Rockman EXE has a notably longer record that Lightman EXE but he was made first to serves as his son's Net Navi."
"The swarm got beat by a kid and his chat-bot?" Reaper asked skeptically.
"Hardly just a chat-bot, that Navi and his NetOp took down multiple terrorist organizations during their time together." Hermes explain as the information fed itself directly to the screen behind his helmet even as it did so to the big screen. "And the kid's not involved anymore, he died about ten years ago now."
"Finally got in over his head?" Their leader suggested.
"You would think, but no. A heart disease called HBD, apparently the family has a history. After that Hikari designed Lightman EXE. Maybe a coping mechanism or something. But anyway, both are part of the official net battlers group, and have certainly made a name for themselves after defeating a group called Myst." Hermes finished going over the key points. "Put simply, I don't think we should underestimate them."
"They obviously have combat experience." Reaper mused as Lurch listened mutely. "We're going to need to try and isolate them from each other, they must have become used to working together by now."
"They still might be difficult to defeat." The leader mused.
"Hey maybe we should get Navis." Hermes suggested, only half joking, "They could be useful, I can call mine LightningMan EXE and he'll use the powers of electricity to move super fast and shock people!"
He was met with deadpan looks from the rest of the table. Their leader just shook his head and got up to see what he could salvage for a new Swarm Virus, Lurch just lumbered off to do whatever it was Lurch did.
"If the Commander was here, he'd slug you for that joke." Reaper said conversationally.
"Good thing he's not here then." Hermes shrugged getting up.
"The walls have ears, you know how paranoid he is!" Reaper called after him but Hermes waved off her concerns. Reaper sighed but got up from the table and walked up the screen with the images of Rockman and Lightman still on it.
She noted that they looked pretty similar, probably used the same template or something. "Bah, they don't look like much, how could two tiny little Navis be that big a problem?" She muttered to herself before turning to go about her duties.
Reaper didn't know it at the time but she was going to be eating those words.
And I feel like that's a good spot to end the chapter.
This is a cast of villains I can work with, mainly because I came up with these guys a long time ago and have them flushed out and have purposes in the plot for all of them rather than just shoving them in at the last minute because I don't know what else to do.
That's essentially what happened with the original chapter three way back when. None of those OCs were supposed to last past that chapter but I didn't know how to get rid of them without risking my K+ rating.
But now that my life is beginning to stabilize, updates should be able to return to their regular schedule. And this story should be getting more chapters soon so look forward to that. At least one more in the next four weeks!
This story hasn't gotten too many reviews, so I'll say this, if I get four reviews for this chapter I'll respond to them next time. But until then, I'll be seeing you!
Bye!
~FriTik
R&R