A/N: Well, it's almost my birthday, so I'm going to give myself a present and give you the next chapter sooner than I did with chapter 17. Nothing much to say beside…

Enjoy!

Oh, and I don't own the exe cast. I do own the plot and Paladin and Ninja, though, so please refrain from stealing/copying it.

And please, forgive me for any errors that there are. This is not betaed, and errors tend to escape my eyes when I give it a second read before posting.

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He is not going to let us alone, is he?

Forte was starting to get really annoyed by the boy that was following them through the entire building while Netto desperately tried to remember where he had seen the archive room. Normally, the brunette would stop and consult a computer, or find one of those maps hanging from the wall, but it would be too strange if he did that in front of Enzan.

Not to mention that it would make the white haired NetSavior even more suspicious than he already was.

Said boy was currently walking a few steps behind him, silent as ever, but with such an intense gaze that Netto felt like his cloak would catch fire if it wasn't so wet. "I don't think he's going to let us go until he gets his answers…" he muttered back, trying to not be heard by his friend. Hard thing to do since the floor they were on was filled only by the faint sound of rain. "And knowing him, he won't back down easily."

For a moment, Netto felt the sudden urge to tell Enzan to just stop following, but when he turned a corner and recognized the door at the end of the corridor, he forgot about it. Glistening in the dim light, the door was made of heavy metal and had an electronic lock in place of a handle, meaning that whatever was behind it was important. "That's the place," Netto muttered as he silently walked towards the door.

He stopped, however, when Enzan rushed in front of him and blocked the way. The white haired boy was standing straight up and had his arms crossed in front of his chest while his blue eyes tried to catch a glimpse of his face. There was no real fear, just apprehension that the navi would cause damage.

"What is it that you want from the archives, Forte?" he asked, mouth set into a light frown. "And don't tell me that it's none of my business, because it is. I'm an official, and as one, it is my duty to defend this place if you plan to cause troubles."

Netto's mouth twitched, then he reached forward with his right hand. Instead of grabbing and hurling his friend away like Forte would do, he simply moved him away and placed his fingers onto the device's infrared port. For a moment nothing happened, but then he felt the transmission of data go up and down his arm, telling him that his partner had started to work on hacking the lock without making the alarm go off.

And true to his abilities, Forte didn't take long in overriding the security of the lock. The red light on the device went out while the green one next to it blinked to life with a sharp beep and, accompanied by a soft click, the door opened was unlocked.

Excited to finally know the real truth of Forte's past and why his creator had never helped him, but at the same time feeling his friend's reluctance into looking at the past and a still open wound associated with it, Netto pushed the door open and stepped inside, completely ignoring the glare coming from Enzan.

The room was long and narrow, with both walls lined with shelves overstuffed with folders and loose papers covered in a thick layer of dust. At the far end, almost hidden under piles of boxes and other stuff, the desk and the computer on it were old and unused.

"They should clean this place out sometimes…" Netto muttered as he slowly walked through the room while sidestepping the occasional box or pile of folders. "This place is… messier than my room when mom doesn't clean it for a week…"

Which was saying a lot, because his room tended to be as much of a mess as any boy his age could make it.

Grateful that Forte hadn't made one of his snarky comments about how humans were horrible things that deserved to be completely erased from the planet, Netto pushed the button on the computer and watched in trepidation as it took several minutes to turn on and completely load its operative system and all of its components.

Shifting papers and random gadgets out of the way, the boy grabbed keyboard, mouse and started to navigate through all the programs in the list. There was no way that he was going to spend days by manually browsing all the files, nor he was going to force Forte into looking for them, so he opened a searching program.

And thus, his search began.

Ignoring Enzan always hovering behind his back and probably musing why Forte was using the computer like a normal human when he was perfectly capable of hacking into an obsolete system, Netto based his search on files dating around ten years ago that regarded SciLabs.

It was a long and taxing task, especially since he could feel his white haired friend breathing down his neck and Forte becoming even more reluctant to the idea of knowing the truth, but when he finally found something, things became somewhat… surreal.

While Forte's restlessness came to a sudden stop and he became deadly quiet, Enzan stopped glaring at the back of the navi's head and shifted his attention onto the monitor as he caught sight of a black and white picture of Doctor Cossack.

The man looked extremely sad and his eyes were cast downwards as the policemen of ten years ago took that photo. His hands, cuffed in front of him, were holding up a small, white signboard with a series of black numbers imprinted on it. Behind him, a white wall with some lines and some more numbers to signal how tall he was.

Feeling strangely calm, Netto scrolled down the file and started to read the data. It wasn't much, just his name, his age, what he had been doing at the time before being arrested and other small details of his persona, leaving out the information that he really needed.

The boy was not satisfied. Just seeing the man's picture and his warrant wasn't enough. He needed to know who had given the police false information and why they had believed this informant so easily to instantly arrest a well respected professor without first making sure what was the real truth.

"Here," Enzan's voice almost made him jump out of his suit, but Netto managed to maintain his calm and took the offered folder that had suddenly appeared over his shoulder. It was thin, full of dust like the rest of the stuff in that room and had a big stamp saying 'case closed' on the front.

Silently, he started to browse through pages yellowed by years, reading everything, even the smallest of the lines and the badly scribbled notes in a blue pen at the edges of the pages. When he was done reading, he calmly closed the folder and stared at it, finally knowing why his father considered Cossack such a great man despite what the black navi believed.

Forte's creator had never meant to kill the one that he considered a son, nor he had ever meant to hurt him or had ever regretted giving him life. Someone at SciLabs had taken the opportunity of Alpha's incident, whatever that was, to enact a plan that he, or she, had been planning for a while.

Unfortunately, when the truth came out, the damage had already been done. Betrayed, Forte had left with hate and rage filling his heart. Cossack, feeling as much betrayed as the navi he had created, disappeared the day after the incident and the police was never able to discover who had given them fake information.

But Netto knew.

For a moment brown eyes flashed dark red as the boy felt sudden rage swell up from the pits of his stomach, then, taking a deep breath to calm himself, he stood up, nodded in thanks to Enzan and walked out of the room. All the while never letting go of the folder he had just read.

"I know who did this…" he hissed as he aimlessly walked through the corridors in search of a window. Enzan was rushing after him, but he barely paid him any attention. "And he is going to get a piece of my mind."

While Netto stomped his way through NetPolice's headquarter, Forte was unable to think. There were no words to express how he felt. Shock was not enough of a word to describe his feelings. For a moment the 'hit with a bucked of ice cold water' came to mind, but even that was far from the truth.

Ten years spent hating his creator, believing that he had ordered his deletion, that he was disgusted with how his son had turned out… ten years of an open wound that never really stopped hurting, of him trying to cover the pain with anger and thirst for revenge…

And all because of a grudge someone else had against him.

He had been betrayed, yes, but not by his creator. Cossack, the man that always said he understood him like no one else could ever do, his 'father'… He had been betrayed too, and by the people that he had considered friends and colleagues.

He… never meant…

At the moment, Forte felt strangely devoid of hatred and anger towards the man that had betrayed both him and his creator. He wasn't even sure that all this was happening, that what he had read through the eyes of his host had been real. It all felt like a really weird dream…

The two were so deep into their own thoughts that they had never realized how far Netto had walked from that dusty room. One moment they were rushing out, and the next they were standing in front of the locked entrance at the bottom floor of the building. Enzan, still behind them, was breathing slightly faster than normal, meaning that he had been rushing to keep up with the cloaked navi.

Netto watched him stop at the counter and let Blues log into the system, probably to open the door before Forte decided to blast it. "I… never expected… something like that…" he commented suddenly, his fingers tapping on the wooden surface while he watched his navi enter the correct password in the security system. No wonder Forte hated humans so much. "I…"

Enzan paused as he turned around and cast his eyes on the silent navi. Forte was standing still in the middle of the entrance hall and was looking past the glass doors with a frown on his barely visible mouth.

Outside, under the heavy rain, dozens of viruses and navi were advancing at a slow pace, almost as if they didn't need to catch them unprepared. The Mettools, composing the first line of the enemy group, reached the weak glass barrier and broke it with a single hit from their pickaxes.

Alarms blared loudly and Netto instinctively dropped the folder he had been holding and brought his hands to the sides of his head to block the ear splitting sound. "It's… it's so loud…" he gasped as he backed away from the nearest speaker hanging from the ceiling. He was so distracted that he never noticed the navis command the viruses towards him.

"Blues, call SciLabs," Enzan spoke to his navi with an undertone of urgency as he rushed forwards to grab the dropped files from the ground. A folder like that was too important to be left around, and Enzan had a feeling that it was the only copy existing and he needed it to bring justice where it lacked for ten years.

Netto would do that.

While his operator grabbed Forte with his free hand and dragged him towards the counter where he had left his PET, Blues opened a video link with the main laboratory at SciLabs and silently greeted the person on the other end.

Since the Dimensional Area was something that was needed at any time of the day, Doctor Hikari had scheduled turns that some scientists had been willing to take. And it was one of these people that answered the call. With black hairs and eyes, the young man had a sleepy face as he greeted the navi and started to activate the generator and set the coordinates.

"Enzan-sama," Blues's call over the blaring alarms went almost unheard by his operator, who was busy hiding Forte behind the counter. The black navi was still clutching at his head when he was sat on the ground and seemed to be unable to move on his own, as if paralyzed.

The building was then enchased into a Dimensional Area, giving the world inside its walls psychedelic colors that would give people not used to its effects a severe case of nausea. Luckily Enzan had overcome that a long time ago and Blues, being a navi, was unaffected by it.

Ignoring the grunts of pain coming from the downed Forte, the white haired boy placed the folder he was holding into a nearby metal drawer on the counter and quickly inserted the Synchro Chip into his PET, initiating that procedure that would enable him to fight with his navi as one being.

As always, light enveloped him, lifting him up into the air, and the data of his navi quickly enchased him. "Let's be quick," he muttered to himself and to Blues, now merged in a single entity with him, as the shield popped with a glassy sound and dropped them back to the ground. No matter how many times he fused with his navi, the feeling of Blues's power running through his body always felt wonderful.

Raising his right arm up and summoning his default sword, Enzan quickly scanned the enemy crowd with calculating eyes. The viruses that Dark Mu had sent this time, save for the Mettools, had been taken from the deepest recesses of the Undernet, making the incoming fight not easy for the NetSavior.

Sure, he was stronger than them and could delete them with a single blow, but the building would suffer heavy damage from the powerful attacks.

"We have to be careful, Blues," he spoke to his navi as he jumped past the counter and took a defensive stance. "We can't have this building collapse. There are still people inside…"

Enzan-sama, Blues's always helpful voice filled his ears as his operator kept his eyes glued on the enemy. Taking care of the alarm seems to be the best course of action. If we can get Forte to join the fight, it'll end sooner.

The boy nodded and glanced at the nearest speaker. "Looks like they caught on too…" he muttered as he watched a navi order some strong viruses to stand guard around the three sound emitting devices. "They are going to use this to their advantage and try to get to Forte…"

Boy and navi readied themselves as the weak Mettools advanced at a slow pace towards them, their pickaxes hitting at the ground every two steps they took. The sounds their tools produced was steady and drumming above the loud alarm, shaking the ground enough that potted plants and chairs slightly moved around with the vibrations.

But the Mettools weren't what Enzan was worried about. Not even the Undernet viruses posed a problem to him. What he was worried about was the fact that the navis commanding the not so intelligent digital beasts had their own operator backing them up.

Which meant, despite his over-the-top ability at battling, someone could still land a lucky shot on him and render him unable to fight. Or even come up with an effective strategy to corner him so that Forte was left defenseless in his paralysis.

Thinking about the black navi made Enzan cast a quick glace behind the counter. Forte had fallen to the ground on his side, still clutching at his head and shaking. If he wasn't so paralyzed and breathing in short and quick gasps, the white haired boy had the feeling that the navi would be howling in pain.

"Blues, do we have any backup?"

Enzan felt his navi hum in displeasure for a few seconds. As soon as the Dimensional Area was deployed, Dark Mu started broadcasting a jamming signal, he explained as he tried once again to contact SciLabs and call for some help. We are alone unless we get rid of the interference or we get Forte in conditions to fight.

Blue eyes turned towards the nearest speaker and the boy frowned deeply. "Which mean leaving him unprotected long enough to get past the viruses to destroy those speakers…"

There was also the option of releasing his Cross Fusion and have Blues hack into the system to stop the alarms from there, but that would leave him in a worse position that he was now. After all, what could a normal boy in his early teens do against a horde of viruses?

Enzan-sama, Blues suddenly called as the viruses slowly closed in, almost as if they savored making him feel cornered. Retreating seems to be the best course of action as of now.

Taking a step backwards and bumping his back against the counter, Enzan nodded lightly in agreement to his navi's idea. There was no way he could handle several strong viruses, protect Forte from their clutches and save the entire building, and the people still in it, from crumbling under the heavy blows. He had to retreat to a less unstable battle ground and with less loud sounds filling the air so that the black navi would be able to defend himself.

Turning around to jump back over the counter to hoist Forte back on his feet, Enzan had barely the time to raise his sword and parry a heavy blow from a familiar white navi that sent him crashing into a column.

"I'm afraid I can't let you take him," Paladin's voice was strangely clear above the still blaring alarm as he shifted his attention from a dazed Enzan to the shaking boy at his feet. A frown appeared on his mouth, but he reached down with his free hand to grab Netto by the arm and hoisted him up onto his feet with ease.

He did have to release him, however, when he was forced to block a downward slash from Enzan's sword with his own. "I won't let Dark Mu goons lay their hands on Forte," the boy grunted, knowing too well that if the evil organization captured the black navi once again, things would become far more complicated than they already were.

The white navi's frown deepened as he stared up at his opponent. "Trust me on this," he replied as he tried to push him away and gain a better foot on the ground. Enzan right now was standing onto the counter, and that gave him a small edge against his enemy. "I'd rather go my own way, but orders are orders, and I'm bound to follow them."

While he remained in a lock with his enemy, Paladin glanced at his target. Forte, or better, Netto was still clutching at his head, but now that he had been hauled back onto his feet, he was stumbling away from the nearest speaker, and as a result, away from him too. With a suppressed grunt, he increased the strength of his push and successfully hurled Enzan away from him, then, with a quick movement of his free hand, he grabbed the paralyzed Netto by an arm and hurled him towards the other navis, who he had ordered to stand back until further notice.

Thanks to the fact that he was lighter than normal and that he could not fight back, Netto crossed the whole hall in an almost straight line before landing against one of the many Undernet viruses. There was a loud crack that resounded through the room for a second before it was drowned by the alarm, and Paladin winced, showing guilt on his face as the viruses surrounded the unmoving 'navi' and started to drag him further into their ranks.

Enzan was not of the same idea, though, and he quickly dashed towards the huddling viruses, slashing at them. Some where instantly deleted, some moved away in self preservation while a few were unharmed by his attack.

It is no good, Enzan-sama, Blues commented as his operator observed how more viruses blocked his path once again, hiding Forte from view once again. These viruses have been enhanced. Somewhat, they are more… intelligent…

Enzan, however, had no time to muse about his navi's observations as he had to turn around and block another of Paladin's attacks. The white navi, still wearing a mask of dissatisfaction and regret, pushed against his opponent's blade to force him onto the ground. "What is Dark Mu up to anyway?" he asked between grunts of efforts.

Paladin paused for a moment, then retreated his sword and swung it in an upward arch to take his opponent by surprise. He was surprised to find, however, that Enzan had moved to the side and was now swinging at his side with a Wide Sword. "I… can't say that," the navi replied as their swords collided again, producing a sharp clashing sound. "I was ordered to not reveal the Emperor's schemes…"

The NetSavior briefly glanced at the mobs of viruses. They were still surrounding Forte and the navis and their operators were grinning amongst themselves, probably commenting on the well executed plan and their luck. "What is it that you can say then?" the boy asked as soon as he returned his attention back to his opponent.

Enzan was not sure why he was speaking with the white navi rather than fighting him. But there was something in the back of his mind that was telling him that, perhaps, Paladin wasn't the real enemy. Sure, he was with the enemy, but he had shown hints that he didn't like it when he had hurled Forte towards his allies. And now that he thought about it, his 'big mouth' was suspicious too.

His opponent gritted his teeth as he moved to the side, disengaging their swords to swing again from his left. There was no heart in it, and Enzan easily parried with his blade. "Nothing much, I'm afraid," Paladin eventually muttered loudly enough to be heard above the blaring alarms as he moved again to stand between the boy and the viruses surrounding Forte. "My emperor wants to keep his secrets, and as his creation, I have to obey his orders. The others, however…"

He left his sentence hang on purpose as he twisted his blade so that Enzan's slipped to the side, then lunged forwards. Unlike the previous attack, however, this was as vicious as Paladin was able to make it, and the sharp edge of his white sword cut into the boy's side, making him scream in pain and back away in surprise.

Enzan-sama! Blues's voice was heavy with worry as his operator was hurt. He did not feel pain because the wound was not on his body, but thanks to the internal scanner program he had always active during fights, he could see the extension of the damage. And luckily, the wound was just a scratch.

"I'm fine, Blues," Enzan replied as he took a few breaths to steady his racing heart and lifted his sword again for another attack. But a simple Wide Sword was not good enough against Paladin. He either used complex tactics to corner him and get a chance to take Forte back under his protection, or he used stronger Battle Chips, or Program Advance, to really damage him so he would be unable to fight. Something that he could not do since a powerful attack would bring the entire structure down on his head.

Taking another quick glance at the room, Enzan decided that taking care of the alarms would be his first priority. There were three of them, hanging from the ceiling near the columns, and all of them were guarded by strong Undernet viruses. All around the room, the Mettools had dismissed their previous orders of standby in favor of mindless destruction while Paladin seemed to weight his own options and ponder on what was best to do.

Still, the white navi and his allies would never sit around while he went for the speakers.

Perhaps if we mask our real intentions for something else…

Enzan nodded at Blues's suggestion. Having fought with him for years, he instantly understood what his navi meant. "It's worth a try," he muttered as he released his current weapon and summoned a Variable Sword, lifting it up and getting ready to engage Paladin once again.

The white navi, seeing Enzan so determined to save the situation, smiled and took a defensive position, his other arm morphing into his shield. "I admire your determination, Ijuin Enzan," he commented as he slightly moved his right foot forwards to get ready for the next clash of swords. "But I can't let you win."

"Sonic Boom!" without wasting any time, Enzan had swung with his Variable Sword as fast as he could and let the energy of the slash fly towards his opponent. Who predictably moved to the side to avoid being cut in half.

Paladin frowned at Enzan's easy-to-read attack and bolted forwards with a quick succession of slashes, which were met by the boy's blade. "That was a cheap attack," he grunted out as he found himself locking swords with his opponent again. "You are better than that."

Enzan smiled, his body trembling as he countered the push from Paladin. He, however, didn't supply any information as it would just exploit his plan of using the fight to cover up his attempts at destroying the speakers. Briefly glancing past Paladin's shoulder he noticed that his first attempt at such tactic had given him excellent results.

Not only a few more viruses had been deleted in the wake of his attack, revealing the shaking form of the black navi laying on the ground, but the speaker hanging above them had been taken care of and, what little had survived from the devastating attack, was now onto the ground, sputtering a few sparks before going completely dead.

It was not enough, however, as the other two speakers continued their tasks of filling the room with their loud blaring. Forte was still paralyzed on the ground and, although he seemed to realize that one of the sources of the terrible sound had been destroyed, he still clutched at his head in pain.

Not wanting to let Paladin catch up with his tactic, Enzan moved a step back and lifted his sword in front of him. It wouldn't take long before the navi realized what he was doing, and once that happened, things would surely get more complicated than they already were.

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As soon as the Dimensional Area was deployed over NetPolice's headquarters, SciLabs had lost contact with Enzan and Blues because of a strong jamming signal. That alone had sent Yuichiro into a worried frenzy. Knowing that Dark Mu's only objective was Forte and his son, he was sure that the new attack the criminal organization had just carried out was not to get information out of the building.

Now the man was pacing back and forth in front of the console that commanded both the Dimensional Area Generator and the large screen hanging on the wall. The monitor, still set onto the frequency used to communicate with Enzan's PET, showed nothing but black and white static as a couple of his colleagues were working as fast as they could to get past the interference.

He still hadn't told anyone about Forte's true identity. Both because there hadn't been any time to discuss it and because part of him knew that certain people would start to demand that Netto submitted to the rules of the adults and let them delete Forte.

Yuichiro had a lot of troubles believing that some of his colleagues would go that far to get rid of the black navi, but he had seen it himself. They had replicated those green colored converters and had used them to trap him against his will. And then everyone who knew Forte wondered why he hated humanity so much…

He stopped his pacing and shook his head, then glanced at Cossack sitting at the desk and patiently waiting for something to happen. Yuichiro sighed at that sight, wondering how the older man could maintain such calmness. Perhaps it was because he had faith in his son.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Yuichiro turned his gaze onto one of the men typing away at one of the many computers in the room. "How is it going?" he asked, worry heavy in his voice. Although he knew that Netto and Forte could take care of themselves, he had a bad feeling clawing at the pit of his stomach.

He was not sure why he was feeling that way. Maybe because 'Forte' had appeared rather sluggish lately. Not even eating had seemed to recover him as he should have. Perhaps it was because the two boys fused in one body had never really rested, and Dark Mu, and several people in SciLabs, hadn't given them much time for that.

The addressed man shook his head and paused briefly in his work. "Not good…" he replied with a frown, breaking Netto's father out of his thoughts again. "The signal is stronger than last time, and it comes from inside the Dimensional Area."

Yuichiro cringed at that and turned his gaze back at Cossack. He was as calm as ever, but as soon as his green eyes met with his brown ones, he knew that the man was as worried as he was.

"Dad," Rockman's voice sounded strangely clear and devoid of that faint electronic tone that always seemed to linger in the background when they spoke through the speakers. And when Yuichiro turned around, he understood why.

The blue navi stood in front of him, his PET clutched in his left hand as he looked at him with determined green eyes. He was using one of the Materializers that Yaito and the others had brought back from the underwater base and, although he appeared still not really used to the device, he held up the PET to Yuichiro. He was tired of just sitting around and waiting for his operator to come back on his own.

"I'm going there," he continued, knowing that with the jamming signal there was no way that he could get inside the Dimensional Area through the net. So maybe, just maybe, he could find a way in from the real world. "I'm going to help Netto-kun."

Yuichiro's eyes hardened as he understood and took the PET in his hand, briefly glancing down at it. Rockman had loaded it with the best Battle Chips that he and Netto possessed.

"Go on, Yuichiro," Cossack said as he smiled from where he was sitting. He would go too, but even if he was in excellent shape for someone of his age, he wasn't as young as Netto's father and would only be a weight to them. "Meijin should be here within minutes now, and he can take care of everything. Go, get your son… and mine."