A/N: Again, short chapter, but I really like how it came out. Yay me!

Do you think that the fight scenes are too fast?

Btw, I do not own Rockman and anything coming from Capcom. I do own the plot idea, though. And the writing. Yep. Writing's mine.

Az.

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It was a truly beautiful day, with no clouds in the sky and a breeze blowing through the city that made his cloak sway gently around him. The weather was perfect for going out and have fun with friends and family.

There was only one problem, though, and that was that the city of Densan was currently overrun by viruses that had materialized at one point in the morning.

Netto was standing on top of a skyscraper, balanced on the edge and looking down at the chaos on the ground. Civilians had long disappeared into the safety of their homes and shelters, leaving the officials and police to deal with anything that was hostile. Either barricaded in a building or moving about in group of dozens, the men and women used old fashioned weapons to shot down any virus that crossed their path.

"I wonder why they aren't using a Dimensional Area…" the boy muttered to himself as he diverted his eyes from the street below to scan the cityscape in search of the characteristic dome. "Maybe there is a problem with the generators…"

Having decided that joining the fight would only expose him to those who were trying to capture him, Netto had regretfully left the viruses to the officials, gritting his teeth and grabbing a hold of something to stop himself every time he heard a scream coming from the streets. He had stopped where he was only because he had seen Enzan enter the building in front of the skyscraper he was perched on and still hadn't come out.

Are you sure that your father will help with this? Forte was being as distrustful as always, but Netto felt that there was something else under all the distrust and hate the navi felt for the human race. He wasn't getting a clear view on it, but after shivering every time SciLabs was mentioned, he was betting that Forte didn't like the place at all. And it wasn't just because it was a place where people would love to put their hands on his Ultimate Program to study it.

"Pretty sure about it," the boy replied absently as he watched Enzan run out of the building just before the Dimensional Area's dome enveloped the entire city block. Netto looked up at the psychedelic hexagons with a raised eyebrow. "Jammer, uh? Didn't know it could mess up with the Dimensional Area to the point of not working…"

That's not what I would worry about, human.

"Don't tell me," Netto paused and turned around to face the roof of the skyscraper with a dejected frown hidden behind the rim of his cloak. For a moment nothing happened, but then a shower of data came together to form into the very familiar enemy that he came to simply call "Paladin". "You…" the boy growled, clenching his fists.

Paladin smiled and morphed his right hand into a sword. "Kid," he murmured in greeting as he readied himself for an attack. "You either come with me willingly, or I'm afraid I'll have to force you."

Netto narrowed his eyes and snorted, shifting his cloak to let it rest at his back and forming two energy swords in his hands. "Then a fight it is. I have a better grasp on Forte's abilities, though, so you might want to leave us be."

The white armored navi's reply came in the form of a forward lunge and a swing of his sword, which Netto easily parried with one of his dark blades. The two struggled for a few seconds then the boy pushed his opponent away with ease.

Paladin's eyes narrowed as he righted himself and readied his sword for another assault. "Looks like you truly got better," he commented as his left arm formed into a shield. "Come, then. Let's not waste any more time in useless chit-chat!"

The tall navi lunged again, but unlike before, his speed had doubled and Netto had a hard time parrying his swipes and finding an opening past the shield to attack. Still fairly unused to Forte's Dark Arm Blades, the boy was forced to jump backwards and hover into the air.

"Let's try with this, then," he grumbled as he dispelled the swords and collected as much energy as he could in his hands in the smallest amount of time before the enemy decided to jump after him. When he decided that the two spheres were powered up enough, he hurled them against his opponent as he was about to leap at him.

The roof of the skyscraper exploded in a cloud of smoke and debris, obscuring Netto's visual of his enemy. He didn't let his guard down, however, and quickly reformed his swords and prepared himself for the next attack, which came like a lightning bolt.

Swords met in a shower of sparks, and, because flying and using his blades at the same time still required some level of concentration, Netto found himself loosing control of his hovering while Paladin violently pushed him towards the street below.

The crash was loud, shook the ground, rattled the windows and created a nicely sized crater in the cement. The boy, as much as winded he had became after such a landing, continued holding off his enemy's sword until he recollected himself enough to land a powerful kick on the white navi's abdomen, successfully hurling him away.

After struggling for a few seconds to stand up, Netto jumped out of the hole and gasped, squeezing his eyes for a second and bringing one hand to his mouth. "Man… I think I'm going to hurl my noodles…" He muttered, blinking and watching his opponent right himself.

That was over three days ago!

Despite the protest, Forte could actually feel his host's upset stomach. A very uncomfortable experience, he decided. Nothing like a headache, but very close to it. He had to give the young human some credits, though, because he was managing to keep the swords solid and his eyes glued to the white navi while forcing himself to not throw up.

"I know…" Netto replied as he forcefully subsided a fit and readied himself for Paladin's oncoming attack.

The three swords met once again and the two opponents engaged into a flurry of swipes, ducks and parries while they occasionally trampled any virus that had the misfortune to cross paths with them. With the larger ones, however, they were forced to jump away and break their swordfight. At one point Netto had seen Enzan cross fused with Blues dealing a heavy blow to a swarm of spiders.

"I got better with the swords," Netto muttered to himself as he landed back onto the ground after avoiding a giant Mettool. He narrowed his eyes onto Paladin's form on the other side of the street and watched as he surveyed a cut on his left shoulder guard. "But he is really something… all I managed was that scratch on his shoulder…"

Forte remained silent, miffed at the fact that their opponent was being so difficult to beat. Just land a Darkness Overload on him and be done with that pathetic excuse for a navi, human.

Netto paused and blinked, then grinned widely from behind the rim of his cloak. "Now that's a brilliant idea," he whispered as he sprung into a run towards an equally running Paladin. The idea that had just been sparked by the black navi's words was insane, but it would finally bring the fight to an end.

When the boy met his opponent, instead of parrying the sword with one of his blades, he let it hit him on his left upper arm. Ignoring the searing pain from the gash he gained from the ignored attack, Netto grabbed the offending arm and held it steady so that his enemy would be unable to back away. "Got you!" he shouted as he kicked the shield away and brought his other hand up.

Instead of being armed with a blade, however, Netto was holding a fist sized sphere of crackling energy. Grinning widely and with a muttered "eat this", he thrust his hand forwards, hell bent on hitting his opponent right on the chest.

Although the devastating hit produced a lot of damage, Paladin had been fast enough to shift to the side enough to avoid deletion. Disentangling himself from Netto's grasp, the white navi backed away holding what was left of his left shoulder and side – his arm was completely missing – and regarded the boy with calculating eyes.

Netto was tired and panting, with a large gash on his upper left arm that bled and had some data dematerialized around it, but he was far from being beaten. "You…" Paladin muttered, wincing as more data dematerialized from his wound with each movement he did. "I didn't expect this out of you…"

Before the boy could recover enough to finish his opponent, the white navi disappeared into a shower of data, soon followed by all the viruses crawling through the city. "So he was the one keeping the viruses materialized in the real world…"

That was an insane plan, Forte commented with voice strangely neutral. You are insane. Getting hit on purpose to create an opening and blast that sorry excuse for a navi point blank, he paused and chuckled, feeling an odd thrill of excitement. A suicidal tactic, but it worked.

Before Netto could reply, however, four objects appeared out of the ground all around him. They looked like Dimensional Area converters, but instead of being blue they were green and pulsed with a kind of energy that gave him a migraine.

"What the…"

The whatever-they-were came to life and the boy felt his body being seized by crackling energy. Suddenly feeling powerless, he was lifted a few feet into the air and no matter how much he tried, he was firmly held there.

"A… a trap…" he gasped out, feeling all his energy being sucked away. "They… they almost sacrificed their best navi just to lure us… in a trap…"

Within his mind, Forte wasn't having an easier time. He growled and struggled to keep his consciousness as far away from the odd energy as he could. This energy… it's the same we found in Amerope…

"I am not… going…" Netto took a deep breath and concentrated, letting his consciousness reach Forte's. Instantly he felt the huge amount of energy swelling behind the mental wall he had created to keep it at bay, waiting to be released. "To let them lay their hands on us."

And release it he did.

The energy rushed unchecked, swallowing and overpowering them until it manifested itself outside their shared body into a flaming aura of dark energy. The converters, not being able to withstand all that power, exploded with a loud boom, freeing Netto and Forte from their clutches.

Once out of danger, but mostly because they were exhausted, the aura disappeared and the boy collapsed to the ground face first. It took him several seconds to regain consciousness and wobbly haul himself to his feet, wincing at the dizziness and the already forming migraine.

"Note to self," he muttered as he staggered awkwardly in a random direction in search of medical supplies and a quiet place to rest. "Use that only as a very last resort…"

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"So, not only they can appear in the real world without the presence of a Dimensional Area, but they also can jam the creation of one."

Enzan nodded as he stood in front of Dr. Hikari, Commander Kifune, his assistant Manabe and Mejin. They were in a conference room at SciLabs and they were having an emergency meeting regarding the latest criminal act against humanity. Rockman had been sent to Netto's friends to ask for help in nearing one of the agents Blues had seen once in the net.

Yuichiro sighed and sat down on one of the many chair around the oval table. He rubbed at his face and let his arms rest on top of the wooden surface in front of him. "And on top of that, Forte is involved too and seems to have the same ability to appear in the real world at will."

The white haired boy nodded briefly before frowning. "He seems against this new group, though," he supplied. "From what we saw, these navi want Forte to either join their cause or give them something."

"Enzan-sama," Blues called from his PET resting on the table. "I compared the energy of those converters to the one we found on that cliff in Amerope. It is the same. Apparently, they have been after him for at least a week, if not more. However, I don't understand why Netto was there if the place was set up to capture Forte."

Frowning, the boy fished in his pocket and took out the small pebble he had grabbed from that cliff and that he had conserved all the way home. "Dr. Hikari," he called as he showed the pebble to the man, deciding that it was time to tell them what he knew. "Roughly a week ago I received a postcard telling me to go to a cliff in Amerope. There I found this and the place had a leftover of the same energy we have seen today."

Yuichiro looked up at the boy, surprised at the revelation, then grabbed the pinkish pebble in his hand and examined the symbol on it. "Netto? What… why would Netto be there? So far away from home? His last mission was just in Central City, and that is an hour of car from here…"

Enzan didn't know why or how his friend had ended up on the other side of the planet. "The handwriting is Netto's," he said as he used his PET to display an image of the back of the postcard he had received. "Rockman can confirm it."

Taking some time to recollect and reassure himself that his son was still alive, only missing, Yuichiro returned his attention on the symbol scribbled on the flat rock and frowned. "I know this," he said with a frown.

The white haired boy nodded and used the monitor on one of the walls to display all the information he had found on it. "It was MedTech's symbol. Osamu Michiro owned the company, which closed for bankruptcy six years ago. He escaped capture by the police," he paused and let some of the text scroll down on the screen. "MedTech was partnered with IPC and had ties with SciLabs."

"Ah, yes!" Yuichiro exclaimed as he placed the pebble on the table and went to a computer located on a desk near the same wall the monitor was mounted on. "MedTech. Now I remember it. It used to do medical research for rare or still incurable illnesses. They used to come to us for certain machinery they needed or for the occasional tip on how to better carry out a test."

He started to type on the keyboard with a speed that was rarely matched, bringing up old data and showing it on the monitor on the wall. "I don't know what kind of research they used to do, but many results actually improved certain cures. I was sad when Michiro was found guilty of diverting money from the research to whatever he used it for…"

Kifune sighed, drawing everyone's attention to him. "Are we sure this company, or what is left of it, is involved in the recent crimes?" he asked slightly doubtful.

Yuichiro frowned slightly as he gazed at the large screen. "No, I'm not sure if it's involved," he replied truthfully. "But Netto dragged Enzan all the way to Amerope for this, so I'm willing to follow this track."

The commander and his assistant briefly looked at each other and nodded. "Netto would never willingly send us a fake clue on whatever is happening," the woman spoke gently but firmly. "I will check this out and talk with those who worked on the case six years ago."

Dismissing the meeting, Kifune and Manabe left the room closely followed by Enzan. Mejin, however, stopped next to Yuichiro and placed a hand onto his shoulder. "He'll be fine," he said, giving a light squeeze and smiling to reassure his friend. "He can take care of himself."

Dr. Hikari nodded. "I know that," he said with a faint smile. "Sometimes he's brash, but he can definitively take care of himself."

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Unknown to the two scientists, however, said boy was hiding in an old clock tower. Too tired to even lift a finger, he was currently laying on the wooden floor on his back and using his cloak as a pillow. The gash on his upper left arm had been bandaged as best as he could and, thankfully, had at least stopped bleeding copiously. The migraine he had, however, was much, much worse than the burning pain from his wound.

Since they were both within the same brain, Forte was suffering as much as he was and was keeping quiet to avoid pointless jolts of pain brought by his voice. He was used to quietly wait in the darkness, finding the action to be restoring, but as much as he tried to rest, sleep or even lose consciousness, the pain was too distracting. He just hoped that the painkiller his human host had taken in a doubled dose would work sooner than later.

Closing his eyes to ward off the painful dim light, Netto remained motionless where he was and waited for sleep to claim him.