Through Restful Waters and Deep Commotion

Saito's earliest memory was of fighting with his brother.

If you could really call it 'fighting'.

With one grubby hand grasping a fistful of Saito's hair, Netto feebly slapped him with the other. The blows were stinging but insubstantial. Even back then he was so much stronger. He had been so angry— physically fine, feelings hurt. A wildly thrown punch, clumsy in form and poorly aimed, connected with Netto's chin. There was a slight plume of blue from his brother's mouth— he'd bit his tongue— and a wail of pain followed.

He couldn't remember what it was that they had been fighting about in the first place.

What stuck with him most was how guilty he'd felt afterwards.

Twins were unusual.

The way their reproduction worked, there was no such thing as identical twins, but sometimes a prolific mernavi would fabricate two initialization chips from the same data collection. The data was always configured a little differently for each chip. Siblings sharing an egg capsule. Fraternal twins. A rare and special thing.

It was just a sad coincidence that in this case, one of them suffered an equally rare data read error— what humans would call a birth defect— during their development stage.

'Incompatible with life.'

Yuuichiro and Haruka found out about this before the boys hatched, but too late to do any reprogramming.

'You'll still have one healthy child, be grateful.'

As if…

As if…

As if they could just let the other one die. Let uncaring, cruel nature take its course, without putting up a fight. Without even trying. How could they possibly sit by and do nothing?

Surgery on an unhatched mernavi was possible, and not even that difficult…

…but carried with it certain risks, like the increased chance of a critical power failure.

In order to save their dying child, they'd put his healthy brother in danger. That was not an easy decision, nor one that they took lightly.

There were a lot of broken friendships, cut family ties, in the fallout.

There was also a silver lining: the trial strengthened their closest family bonds. Yuuichiro's primary Tadashi was perhaps the greatest computer scientist of his generation, and while he wasn't a repair type, Yuuichiro was no slouch in the digimedical field himself. Haruka was their cornerstone, the strength they all drew from when everything seemed hopeless. (She had been every bit as scared and distraught as they were, but she'd put on a brave face for their sake.) Together, they pulled through.

Saito wasn't born a combat type.

His brightest, clearest memory was of the day his weapons system came online.

The sensation of something new awakening inside him. The sheer… power… that he felt.

Saito stumbled over his words when he excitedly tried to explain to Netto what was happening. His brother had stared in confusion, although to be fair, Saito wasn't making a whole lot of sense at the time. With the realization that actions speak louder than words, he grabbed Netto by the wrist and dragged him along, swimming away from their home. He kept going until they reached the outskirts of the city, facing the open ocean.

Forming a cannon was as natural as running water through his cooling vents. The metal plates on his arm shifted and rotated, the structural framework beneath repositioned itself, snapping into place. It felt so strange, that first time, almost painful.

Firing the blaster was like taking a deep drink of fuel, or swimming along in a steady current. Effortless.

Absolutely thrilled with this turn of events, Netto whooped and threw his arms around Saito's neck, twirling about in the water.

Saito just grinned sheepishly.

That was also the day his brother started calling him 'Rock'.

The suffix that humans mistranslated as '-man' wasn't a title given out to just anyone. It had to be earned or bought. Children weren't called '-man'. Especially not children who suffered a congenital disorder which nearly killed them before they were even born.

In less than a year after gaining a blaster, he had earned the name 'Rockman'.

They were like krill, plankton. Tiny, deadly mantis shrimp trying to take on a blue whale.

The energy blasts from Rockman's cannon ricocheted off the robotic sea serpent. It was large enough to swallow them whole, and their biggest advantage was how slowly it moved compared to the young mernavis. Their only advantage, really. Nothing they threw at it made a bit of difference. Netto darted in front of it, rhythmically twitching his tail in an effort to draw the serpent's attention. A huge metal maw opened before him, flashing rows of serrated teeth eager to tear into his frame. He spun, twisting in the opposite direction, and swam as fast as he could.

When it snapped its mouth shut, this created a rush of water, propelling Netto forward even as those dreadful teeth swept past him, so close that he could've reached out and touched them.

With a cry of outrage, Rock unleashed a volley of shots at the serpent, swimming along its jawline as he fired. "Get away from my brother! Netto, be careful!"

Blues' sword skittered over the creature's armor, leaving a thin uneven scratch, unable to penetrate such impossibly thick plating.

"Oh, come on!"

Bolting over the top of its head, Netto appraised the situation, and tried to think of a way to defeat the sea serpent. 'Tried' being the operative word.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but wasn't Forte supposed to be giving us a hand with this?" Blues asked, gritting his teeth as he struck from a different angle. He was going for the seams, hoping to find a weak spot. It was a good idea, except it didn't work.

"Yeah, he's on his w—"

Rock was distracted enough that a swing of its giant caudal fin struck him from behind, sending him spiraling tail over top. Blues gave up on trying to stab the serpent and raced after his friend. The moment Rock was able to steady himself, he stalled, hovering in place as he clutched his head and tried to shake off the vertigo. Seconds later Blues crashed into him, dragging him to safety as the monster chomped at empty water— right where Rock had just been.

"Losers," Forte commented, finally arriving for the fight.

"Where were you?" Blues countered, then glanced at Rock. "You okay?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Forte had gleefully rushed in. His attacks were no more effective than Rock or Blues' had been, but he was not the least bit discouraged by this fact.

When Rock moved to return to the fight, Blues grabbed his arm. "You should wait a minute, let your head clear. Otherwise you will hamper the rest of us."

Shoulders sagging, Rock heaved a weary 'sigh' through his cooling vents. Blues meant well, even if sometimes the execution left something to be desired… and he wasn't wrong.

"Alright. I'll be with you guys in a few."

He watched sullenly as Blues swam back, the massive sea serpent twisting and writhing, gnashing its teeth and swatting its tail, with Netto still diving around it like a pesky damselfish, and Forte enthusiastically (but fruitlessly) firing away. Since he was a good distance from the action, Roll approached to check on him, then gave him the all-clear.

By the time he rejoined them, Netto had a plan.

"Blues, get 'em in the corner of the eye with your sword! Rock, Forte, focus on that eye!"

"Don't tell me what to do, you little orange gull t—!"

"Just shoot the eye!"

"Just do it already!"

"Must you argue everything?"

All three responded at the same time, making it hard to understand any of them, and Forte pulled a face… but he also got into position.

The sword did cut deeply, sliding in-between the serpent's eye and socket, allowing Blues to slice into the screen and the delicate visual equipment below. It was the opening they needed, and with both Rock and Forte focusing their shots in the same spot, its left optic went in an explosion of flickering light and electricity. The serpent thrashed, then dove, retreating down into the deep sea.

They'd hoped to kill the beast, but driving it away from the populace was the next best thing. With the injury they'd given it, it was unlikely to go hunting for an 'easy' mernavi meal ever again.

At first, Forte gave chase, but Blues rushed ahead and cut him off.

"It's no longer a threat, let it go."

Forte sneered and for a moment looked like he might blast the other navi.

"Yeah," said Netto, slowly approaching, exhausted from all the racing around. "C'mon, let's head back home. If we go now we can catch the last half of Star Potter Reloaded."

"'Home'—"

"Mom's making stuffed cathode crabs with a niobium crust," Rock added, eyes wide, a hopeful expression on his face.

This earned a dirty look and a dramatic eye roll, but Forte gave in and followed them back to the city, grumbling to himself the whole way.

Rockman's favorite memory was of the evening that followed.

Good friends and good food, his parents being lovingly embarrassing, the sense of accomplishment from a victory in battle, the five of them goofing off and playing games and talking for hours about nothing of substance.

What stuck with him most was just how perfectly ordinary it was, and all the little things that made it special. The mischievous glint in Netto's eye when he was teasing his friends, the peaceful look on Blues' face when he really felt at home, Forte's stubbornly feigned disinterest, the sound of Roll's laughter.

They were up so late that Netto fell asleep on him— literally, helm resting on Rock's shoulder, one of the ridges digging into his neck. Putting his arm around Netto, Rock let him sleep, both of them listening to the comforting sound of their brother's circulation pump.

A/N: Trying to come up with a name for the initialization chip, we kicked around different suggestions. I thought it would be fun to share (some of these were jokes): gamete chip, larval chip, spore chip, oocyte chip, kernel chip, integrated circuit chip, "ahhh but this is more like… the egg.. the zygote… the fetus chip, lol", base chip, initialization chip

- I may come back to this and add more chapters when the inspiration strikes, then shuffle them to the appropriate spot in the timeline. Until then: thanks for reading!