TO AVOID CONFUSION: Forte has no relation to Pharaohman. He just absorbed the data left around when Wily created Gospel.

A/N: PEOPLE! Forgive Az for the TERRIBLE lack of updates, again, but I've been either too busy or too tired (or sick) to do more than just vegetate around. I hope that this chapter is long and good enough to stop you from killing me?

SINCE this chapter was getting way too long, I've decided to split it up so you can read some while I finish the rest. So yeah, things will be a tiny bit slow before they pick up again next chapter.

ALSO: Check out my profile for a forum dedicated to this fic, where you can get news on the progress of this fic (since I never update my bios at and rarely update the journal at DA)

THANKS TO: Vienrider (from ), who has helped me past a nasty writer's block. I appreciated the help. Too bad I was unable to insert that lil piece of nightmare. I'll prolly keep it for another occasion.

Well, looks like last chapter was really appreciated. Thanks to everyone! And thanks to you all for sticking around waiting for me to update. I appreciate it.

Anyway, I do not own Rockman and anything coming from Capcom. I do own the plot idea, though. And the writing. Yep. Writing's mine. And the plot. Plot is mine too, especially the concept of "Black Fury". Kindly refrain from stealing it.

Az.

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Netto observed the twisted wreckage of the underwater base through the thin energy veil that protected him from the cold lake waters. More than half of the structure was gone while the remaining parts were either crumbled or so unstable that they could fall at the simple touch of a finger. Still, it was the perfect place to hide for the rest of the day, for, although both Dark Mu and SciLabs had surely detected his descent through the atmosphere, none would dare to trudge through those ruins.

"We really did a number on this place…"

Serves them right.

Forte's dry words made the boy sigh as he moved past a girder jutting out of the muddy ground and through the entrance to one of the few still standing parts of the base. What little light reached the lakebed faded away, leaving them to float in darkness.

"I… suppose…"

Netto had to agree with his companion. Dark Mu, even if only attacking sporadically and with only Paladin and Ninja as capable agents, was starting to aggravate him as much as the lack of vegetables in his curry. That, however, was not what worried him the most. The evil organization could attack as many times as it wanted and he knew that he and Forte could take care of anything they could throw at them.

What worried him was the fact that as much as he wanted to go back home, tell his father everything and finally find a way to undo their Cross Fusion, Netto was feeling like not going back yet. And the more time passed, the more he found himself wandering away from SciLabs for longer periods of time.

Just like he was doing right now.

He wasn't running away from his problems, though. All he needed was just some time away from those stares full of hate and contempt coming from many scientists at SciLabs. No one ever dared to lift a finger against him and Forte again after the incident with the Leeches, especially since Enzan had clearly stated that whoever attacked or tried to harm him would result in them getting into serious troubles.

Once we're back, Forte's calm and firm voice startled the boy out of his troubled thoughts, gaining his full attention. Kid, you have to tell them. We can't go on like this forever. I want my independence back.

Netto looked down, barely seeing his cloak in the darkness. "I know…" he muttered, closing his eyes and trying to rest. The Life Aura had been extremely easy to master to the point he could maintain it without even focusing on it, but he was finding out that keeping it up and running for prolonged periods of times was taxing. And this was keeping it at a minimum. He had no clue how it worked during a battle, and he wasn't planning to test it yet.

"I know I have to tell them," the boy resumed after a while, letting his body relax and mind slowly drift into rest, knowing that the instinctual part of him would maintain the shield and wake him up if necessary. "It's just… recently there's this… itch that I get every time we're at SciLabs. As if there was… something in there that makes me want to leave the moment I step inside…"

Forte frowned upon hearing those words, worried that his host would stop going back to the only place and people that seemed to be able to find a solution to their problem without the obsession of using him for some obscure plot to dominate the world. He had no intention of being stuck with the boy for the rest of their lives, and considering that a navi never died of old age…

If you don't talk with at least that father of yours, I will force you, Forte used a menacing tone of voice, but the lingering sadness he felt coming from his host made him falter, even if just slightly. It was annoying to feel something that was not his and that he had cast away long ago, but as much as he tried, he couldn't find it in himself to be angry.

Perhaps he was just too tired to even care about it…

"Maybe you should really do it…"

Netto's tired words broke Forte out of his wandering thoughts, making the navi sigh inwardly. Perhaps, he conceded after a few seconds of silence. We'll just catch the man out of SciLabs and talk to him then.

The only answer he received from his host was a murmur before he was left alone with his thoughts as Netto fell into a light slumber. Forte busied himself with the proximity scanner for a few minutes to make sure no one was sneaking on them, then, when nothing moved, he let the program run in the background and let his mind rest. With nothing else to do, and knowing that they would instantly wake up if someone approached them, he let himself fall into rest.

.

.

He had been wandering the Undernet for a long time now, but his thirst for revenge against humanity for what they had done to him hadn't been satisfied yet. A gust of wind and dust assailed him and he huddled into his cloak, gritting his teeth.

He did not know, nor cared, why humans had created the Undernet to look as a desert, nor why they had replicated gusts of wind that lifted the sand into the cyber air. Maybe it was just humanity wanting to play gods and create a world that they could fully control, unlike the one they lived in. It didn't matter, though. Whatever the reason was, it was annoying.

That was his life. Wander the desert each day in search of a worthy opponent, delete whoever tried to do the same to him and hate humanity for everything they did and for everything they were.

Until…

Forte stopped in his track as his thoughts were suddenly pierced by emotions that were not his, slowly dissipating the haziness of the dream. "That is right…" he murmured to himself. "I haven't been in the Undernet for a while now…"

Ignoring the annoying presence of his host at the back of his mind, Forte glanced past the rim of his cloak and into the depths of the sandstorm and felt a sudden urge to leave that place. He was not in need of company, or someone to talk to, especially if it was that Hikari boy, but for some odd reasons the emptiness and the silence of his dream was getting on his nerves.

He wanted action. No, he needed it.

Beside the occasional fight against another foolish navi in search of glory or a group of viruses that were too stupid to stay away from him, his life in the Undernet had always been a quiet wandering, often thinking back at the past and hate it and everything that humanity stood for. But thinking about it now, that life looked… boring.

Forte frowned deeply, disgruntled at the sudden realization. Perhaps he had been stuck with the human kid for way too long, but he was tired of just hiding away and fight for survival. Even the emotion of hate was becoming old and stale. Almost disgusting…

"I am going to maul that kid…"

How he was going to do that, however, was something that he had yet to figure out. He had no idea of where to check within his core program for whatever was maintaining him tied to the human boy and he didn't dare to delete something while there was such a mess in the coding. His programs were still all there despite having moved around, plus some that had been forcefully installed in him, but there were some long strings of coding that he had absolutely no clue what they were for.

He remembered tampering with one a week or so earlier, and that resulted in his host becoming suddenly tired and unable to do more than curl in a corner. His heart had slowed down so much that for a moment Forte thought that the boy was going to fall into some sort of coma or stasis.

His musings were pierced by Netto's emotions once again and Forte found himself focusing on them. He had no idea of what his host was dreaming about exactly, but judging by the emotional pain he knew that it was a nightmare. "So… this is what he meant by me calling him..?"

It made sense now. Although he had been too deep into the nightmare to realize he had been having one, his inner turmoil had seeped into the boy's mind and made him aware. His 'hero complex' then had urged him to cross the boundaries between their consciousnesses and mess with his nightmare.

"It's… none of my business…"

But as those words left his mouth, the black navi was unable to ignore the continuous nagging from the boy he was tied to. Knowing that there was no way he was going to be left alone with his thoughts, Forte closed his eyes with a barely contained growl of anger.

He had no instructions about how to reach his host's consciousness, nor Netto had ever told him how he did that, but as he focused better on the lingering presence in his mind, he felt himself move somewhere else. It was like teleporting from a section of the internet to another with the use of a link, and when he reopened his eyes he saw that the desert had been replaced by a black nothingness.

Save for a boy huddled in front of him with his head hidden between his knees.

Forte frowned as he looked down at the trembling kid. This was not the kind of dream, or nightmare, he had imagined Netto would have. He could understand about dreaming of terrible monsters lurking in the darkness and waiting to eat the dreamer, but this was something he could not understand.

The boy was just sitting there, doing nothing but shake and rock back and forth, too deep into his nightmare to realize that Forte was standing in front of him.

"Hikari…" the navi's voice echoed into the empty space. "Wake up, Hikari."

When Netto did not reply to his call, Forte lost his patience. This was not like it was supposed to go. The boy was supposed to wake up within the dream as soon as he reached him, just like it had happened with him in the past. This was… wrong.

He was not worried for his host, though. It was just that his pain was annoying. He hated it.

"Damn it, Hikari," with a growl, the navi grabbed Netto by his arm and hauled him to his feet, finally seeing his face as something clattered to the floor. The boy was not crying openly like a spoiled kid would do, but the tears and the intense pain coming from him weren't stopping and it made Forte falter in his insults.

Being forcefully moved, however, woke Netto up with a start and his brown eyes locked with Forte's red ones. "It's… a nightmare…" he muttered shakily as he shifted his gaze from the navi to the object on the ground. He let out an exhausted laugh as he crouched down and grabbed a blue PET with his family's emblem on it, completely ignoring the fact that Forte was still painfully grasping his arm. "Just that stupid nightmare again…"

Forte did not care, but his eyes traveled to Rockman's PET anyway. There was no blue navi greeting his cold stare, just a word that cyclically rolled through the screen without stopping. It read 'deleted' in cubical letters, as if just the meaning was not enough.

"I won't let it happen again…"

Netto's words made the black navi look back up at him. The boy had stopped crying, but he was still shaken and had not moved his eyes away from the empty screen of the PET in his hands. "Once was enough…" he continued, letting Forte know that this was not just a simple nightmare, but something that had really happened.

And Forte knew that it was true. Not just because he had those partial memories from the data he had absorbed from Pharaohman after his deletion, but because there was no way Netto would lie on something like that. It just was not in his character. For the first time in his life he could trust a human to say the truth.

"I don't believe in backups…" Netto continued after a while. "I can't explain it, but it wouldn't be the same… he would have his memories, his abilities, but… he wouldn't be Rockman. But Rockman survived. His memories were split amongst all our navi friends and all he needed was a new frame…"

Netto gave a tiny smile at the memory and Forte felt the relief cast the pain away. How a small kid like him could suffer so much for a navi was impossible to understand for him. Every human on the planet did not care if their navis were deleted. All they needed to do was use the back up or get a new one…

But the boy was proving that he was different from all the others. He could understand the importance of a navi and considered them to be an equal to his race. For him, to be made of flesh or data didn't matter. The end result was the same.

Someone that was capable of feeling, and not just a thing to discard.

"But I can't let it happen again… to none of my friends," Netto's voice was tired, but at the same time firm. And when the boy looked up at Forte, the navi saw pure determination written on his face. "I promised it to myself."

Forte's face morphed from neutrality to a frown and then to neutrality once again as he was unable to accept those words and the truth they carried. "I don't need your empty promises, human," his voice sounded tired and distant, and again, for the first time in his life he didn't care about trying to maintain his mask of hatred. It was just too much and too fast, even for him. "I have no use for them."

Netto's eyes narrowed when Forte released his arm and turned around to walk away. "Still…" he said as he grabbed the navi by his upper right arm and stopped him. He wasn't as strong as him, but if Forte wanted to be left alone he had to tie him down before he let him go. "Like it or not, Forte, you're my friend now. And you can count on it. Hell is going to freeze over before I let someone hurt you."

For a moment, the navi was unable to pull his arm free from Netto's grasp. "No, you won't," he replied after a few seconds of silence. "You are a human, and humans are all the same."

They started to fade into darkness, and both knew that they were waking up. Still, Netto had enough time to reply.

"No, we're not. And I will show you. Even if it's the last thing I do."

.

.

It was finally an official order, and it came from someone with a higher ranking than what his NetSavior status granted him. No one had to act against, and harm, Forte until further orders were issued.

Still, the reunion had lasted far longer than everyone had anticipated, with Commissioner Kifune asking questions about Forte and his assistant Manabe taking notes. Enzan wasn't exactly happy to have been called to NetPolice's headquarters so late in the night, especially for a thing that he had thought he had solved several days earlier, but he couldn't blame his superiors for being worried and anxious over Forte's presence at SciLabs either.

Kifune didn't know everything about Forte's past, not like Hikari Yuichiro did. He only had some records of ten years ago and several tales from the net to go by, which both gave the black navi a bad light.

But the white haired boy was siding with Netto's father on believing in Forte being an ally. He wasn't exactly on friendly terms with the rogue navi, but so far the 'fabled' God of Destruction had done nothing unless he was provoked.

"I would attack back too if someone wanted to destroy me…" he muttered after a while. He hadn't been there when a group of scientists had decided that Forte had to be eliminated, but Doctor Hikari had recounted the episode to him to the smallest of details.

Enzan could understand it well enough. The recent episodes of Forte's madness had been brought forth because the navi had been openly attacked, sparking that survival instinct and deep hatred that he had recently repressed in favor of gaining help from SciLabs.

"Still, I have no idea why Forte is waiting so much to ask for what he needs…" he muttered as he looked at the darkened sky through the window of the office. No star greeted him back, meaning that the weather forecast had been right in saying that it would rain all night.

The red PET on the table beeped once and the holographic display came to life, showing a musing Blues. "I am not sure, Enzan-sama, but Doctor Hikari is certain that Forte will talk when ready. Otherwise he wouldn't spend almost all of his time at SciLabs," the navi then frowned, unable to understand why the situation felt so odd. "Still, the more I watch him, the more there is something strange with him."

"Yes," Enzan confirmed as he watched the dark clouds finally release their load on the city. "We're missing something, but until we find the right piece of the puzzle, we can only wait. Hopefully, now that Commissioner Kifune has issued the order to not capture or harm him, he will decide to talk sooner than later."

Operator and navi remained in silence for a while, both with their mind lost in the recent events, until Blues had the presence of mind to check the clock. "We should go, Enzan-sama," he said, noticing that it was past midnight and that everyone had left, leaving the building empty save for those few people of the night shift.

Nodding once, Enzan turned around and grabbed his PET from the table. "Good idea. Forte might be back to SciLabs," he replied as he walked out of the office and into the dimly lit corridor. "And if not, I want to know if they have tracked him down."

Letting his feet carry him towards the nearest elevator, the boy spent the next minutes trying to sort out the recent events and what he knew of Dark Mu and their obsession with capturing Forte. Whatever code the navi had, it was something really important to them. His mind was so busy that he almost missed when his foot produced a splash instead of a soft thump when he crossed another corridor.

Curious, he looked down at the floor as he stepped back and noticed a small puddle of water. Or better, a trail of puddles. Although almost invisible because of the lack of good lighting, Enzan still managed to follow the trail with his eyes and discovered that while the right end disappeared around a corner, the one to the left led to an open window at the end of the corridor.

Instantly suspicious, the boy narrowed his eyes and reached the window to look outside. There were no ropes hanging from the window or the roof, nor ladders leaning against the wall. "To be able to enter through the window on the fourth floor without a climbing tool… no human can do that."

Considering that Dark Mu's agents were laying low and had no interest in the NetPolice, there was only one navi left that he knew of. With the ability to fly, Forte could easily reach any place he wanted in a matter of seconds.

Having thought the same thing, Blues glanced at the trail of water on the floor with worry from his place on Enzan's belt. "Should we give the alarm?"

The boy frowned and turned around to follow the trail. "No," he replied, trying to keep his walk calm and even. If it was really Forte, and he was sure of it, it was best to not try to sneak up on him without at least a Cross Fusion backing him up. "Giving the alarm might cause an unnecessary fight. However, be ready to call SciLabs for a Dimensional Area."

There were no further words between the two as Enzan turned corner after corner, eyes shifting from the floor to each dark corner he encountered, knowing that Forte could easily hide in one of them and ambush him if he wanted.

Instead of an ambush, however, the boy found the navi standing still in the middle of the corridor with his back facing him. Barely visible in the dim light, soaking wet from finned helmet to feet and with a cloak dripping water on the ground, Forte seemed unsure of which way to go and was muttering to himself.

For a single moment, Enzan thought that his arrival had gone unnoticed, but when the navi turned slightly around to look at him with his hidden gaze, the boy stopped just outside the other's reach. Although he was a calm and patient person, standing there and waiting for Forte to do or say something gave the NetSavior the sudden urge to grasp the navi by his cloak and shake him while demanding for answer.

"Why aren't you talking yet?" Enzan suddenly asked when the tension he felt reached levels that he could barely restrain. "Where is Netto?"

No verbal answer came from Forte, just a frown of his mouth as the navi slightly tilted his head to the side in thought. An action that made Enzan curl his hands into fists, tense his shoulders and feel like he was talking to a wall. "Is he alright?" blue eyes narrowed and the boy took a tentative step forwards. "Is he even alive?"

The frown on Forte's mouth deepened for a few seconds, then turned upwards into an amused smile before the navi turned around and continued his silent walk down the corridor. Without a clear answer and not wanting to let the navi out of his sight, Enzan followed. There was no way he was going to let him wander NetPolice's headquarters and do what he wanted undisturbed.

.

.

Sitting almost all day at his desk and having Rockman browse the net in search of any kind of information that could help him find his son was something Yuichiro Hikari found to be extremely tiring despite not moving at all.

True to his self, Rockman hadn't stopped one moment, too, and had gone as far as searching through Sharo and Amerope's nets and servers. He had heard rumors, a lot of them, but none had helped him in finding what was happening to his operator and why he hadn't come back yet despite being in the city. The only good thing about visiting those places was that every friend Netto had there had promised to keep their eyes open for anything odd that might happen in their country. Laika had even went as far as involving Sharo's military while Raoul had instantly gone to search for information in the darkest parts of his city.

"You two should take a rest, Yuichiro."

Cossack's voice suddenly filling his silent laboratory startled Yuichiro back to reality and made the younger of the two men place Rockman's PET onto the desk and turn around to face the other. "Perhaps you are right," he replied with a tired smile. There was nothing more he and his son's navi could do at the moment. "Still…"

The fact that his son was out there, under the rain and with hundreds of enemy navis looking for him, made Yuichiro unable to rest as he should, or go back home and give his wife some deserved comfort.

"Dad," Rockman's voice made both men look at one of the monitors on the desk as the navi finally returned back from the internet. "I think Doctor Cossack is right. Maybe… maybe tomorrow we'll find something…"

The blue navi wasn't happy to admit that he had to take a rest. He had battled powerful navis, had gone through harsher feats than running around the net, but he could clearly see it too. His creator, the man he considered a father, was slowly falling prey of exhaustion.

Everyone had the feeling that the answer to Netto's whereabouts was just within reach, but Dark Mu's attacks, the worry for the missing boy and Forte's mysterious presence was making everyone too stressed to be able to think clearly. And now that the evil organization was laying low, it was time to stop for a moment and rest as much as they could.

Cossack smiled at the navi and grasped the wheeled chair, pulling it away from the desk and turning it around so that Netto's father was facing the opposite direction and he was standing at his side. "Rockman is right," he commented with a soft smile. "Get some rest, tomorrow is another day and you'll be able to think better with a refreshed mind."

His green eyes then fell on the family photo Yuichiro kept on the other end of the desk and his face became serious. "Yuichiro," he called as he walked around the sitting man and grabbed the framed picture. "This is your son, isn't it?"

Netto's father grabbed the photo and leaned back onto the chair. The boy was smiling cheerfully at the camera while he and his wife stood next to each other behind him. The picture had been taken a couple of years earlier, during one of the rare days when he was at SciLabs to personally oversee some project.

"Yes, that's my boy," the man replied, eyes filled with both happiness and sadness. Remembering happy times helped lessening the pain and worry, but at the same time it reminded him that Netto was still missing. And it ached terribly. Now he understood how his son felt when he was away from home for months. "Why?"

Scratching his blonde beard, and idly wondering for a moment if he should at least trim it, Cossack replayed his recent encounter with Forte. His face had been different from the one he had given him, and it wasn't just the darkened red eyes or the purple streaks. It was rounder, and now he understood why it had felt so familiar. Netto's face was a lot like his father's.

"Because," he started after a couple of seconds of careful contemplation as he pointed at the boy's smiling face. "The eyes are different, but now I'm sure of it. This is the face I saw when I looked at Forte."

Yuichiro looked up at his colleague in confusion for several long seconds, his hands and the photo they were holding resting on his lap, then things just started to fall into the right place. Forte's sudden change of heart, Netto leaving messages without getting caught, Dark Mu talking like Forte was aiding the boy… everything made sense. Well, almost everything. There were still a few things that needed to be explained, but those were minor details at the moment.

His mouth twitched, and Yuichiro found himself chuckling for a couple of seconds before exploding into a liberating laugh. "I… I can't believe he fooled me so well," he said after calming down enough to talk and rub the tears away from his eyes. "No wonder Forte never talks, his voice would instantly give his secret away!"

"Dad, you mean," as he spoke, Rockman was shifting his eyes between the two men and the barely visible photo Yuichiro was holding. "That Forte... is Netto?"

The blue navi suddenly felt a mixture of guilt and anger towards himself as he realized that, for all the time 'Forte' had been at SciLabs, he had never recognized his operator. The hints had been there, clear as day now that he thought about it. Forte always eating or getting the food Netto loved, the small movements he did… and then there was that sense of familiarity he always got when around the black navi, but that he had always thought that it was because of having been merged with him once.

"I… I should have paid more attention…" he whispered, looking down at his feet in sadness. "I knew there was something… odd about him. But I was so busy looking for Netto that I never realized he was already back, nor bothered looking at Forte in the face… not even when he was unconscious…"

But at the time he didn't want to risk having 'Forte' wake up right when he was so close. The navi never liked being so close to someone unless he was fighting, and Rockman felt the need to respect his privacy. If only he had ignored that and had just looked at his face, now things would be different and Netto wouldn't be somewhere out there under the rain.

Or maybe not. If his operator had willingly kept his real identity hidden, then maybe there was a good reason for it. Netto might be a young kid, but Rockman was sure that the boy knew what he was doing. "I hope you're alright, Netto-kun…"

Replacing the framed photo back on the desk, Netto's father stood up and started to pace back and forth in front of the two, gaining their attention. His lab coat, dirty with a few coffee stains and some purple marks, flapped wildly behind him as his mind connected the pieces with each step he took. "I'm not sure how or why, but… it makes sense! It's the only possible explanation even if it's so… farfetched."

Unable to do anything but watch as Yuichiro became suddenly filled with energy, Cossack waited for the younger man to stop a moment and actually explain what was happening. He had seen him like that a few times in the past, and there was no way someone could snap him out of it without the use of a bucket of water. Something that someone once had done, but that was another story.

"Cross Fusion," Netto's father continued, ignoring the confused stares from the two spectators and sitting back at the desk to type several data on the computer that only he could understand. "A navi and a human combining in the real world within a Dimensional Area. I should have connected things sooner…"

"Dad," Rockman tried to call for his creator's attention as he watched line upon line of data fill the screen of the other computer. "If that's true, then how could they successfully gain Cross Fusion when they have no synchronization? And last time I saw him, Forte still hated humans. There is no way Cross Fusion would work like that…"

"But what if it was imposed?" Cossack suddenly supplied from his spot behind Yuichiro. He might not know everything, but he had always been quick in catching up. "If a navi can manifest itself in the real world with the use of a Materializer, then maybe they found a way to attain Cross Fusion outside a Dimensional Area too, and without the need of synchronization."

Yuichiro stopped typing at the computer and frowned. "We need to find them," he said as he wondered how well Netto was doing paired up with a bloodthirsty navi like Forte. He knew that his son had a strong will, but the recent episodes of madness worried him. "Their current fusion might be harmful for both of them…"

Despite discovering that Netto had been the one moving around and that Forte might still be his old raging self, Yuichiro was still genuinely worried for him as much as he was worried for his son. And then there was that episode where those dark red eyes had stared at him and he had thanked him for his help. That hadn't been Netto. Or better, it hadn't been just him.

His instinct of father told him that deep down, Forte had changed…

"Oh my…" As his train of thoughts brought him back to the moment he had been stitching Forte's side, Yuichiro felt his heart sink. "How can I call myself a father when I can't even recognize my son?" he asked himself in a whisper as he remembered how he had been stitching that ugly cut on his son's side.

The hand suddenly placed on his shoulder brought him back to reality and brown eyes looked up at his colleague. "Let's just find them for now," Cossack said as he grabbed the intercom's receiver and held it up to Yuichiro. "And ask for an explanation when we know they are alright."