Disclaimer: Don't own Rockman and related stuff, but I do own my original characters (Paladin, Ninja and Dark Mu's emperor)
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A/N: with 15 pages and over 8.500 words, this is the longest chapter I've ever written and posted. Took me this long because I feel that this is an important chapter for a certain someone's emotional development. You also get to know details, but at the same time some questions might be pop up as you read.
This chapter is somewhat slow with the action, but at the end you'll know why.
Fun fact: Osamu Michiro. He is the leader of Dark Mu, and when I named him I threw the name, not caring if it even existed. Only recently I get to know that Osamu not only exist, but it also mean "chronicler", "disciplined", "logical", "obtainer", "to reign", "ruler". Now, I'm not entirely sure about the "chronicler" one, but let me tell you, the guy's personality fits the rest of the meanings quite well. What a scary coincidence!
Thanks to Mistrevar (DA) / Zephyra Cobalt (ffnet) for all the plunging she did to get me out of the various blocks I got into while writing this chapter.
And thanks to all of my readers, who have supported me so far with your reviews, drawings and/or just by reading, faving and watching my work. Your encouragement is appreciated and it is a nice ego boost for me and my writing skills.
Odd fact: I nearly cried while writing a piece of this chapter. I do hope that the same piece will have a similar effect on most of you. I really tried my best on that.
Anyway, I'm done. Happy reading, everyone!
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The first thing that Forte noticed when he regained consciousness was the fact that he felt different, somewhat heavier. He was laying on his right side, half curled up and onto something really soft and comfortably warm, with his cloak enveloping him.
He tried to move, to open his eyes, but his body just didn't want to respond to his commands, rendering him powerless and blind. He could hear, though. There was the soft humming of a computer, the rhythmic ticking of a clock and the incessant scraping of a pen -or pencil- on paper.
He felt safe, but somehow, he knew that there was something wrong with the situation he was in. He was not sure what it was, his memories were hazy and distant, but he had the feeling that he was missing an important detail. Something that had been there for a long time, lingering at the back of his mind…
Forte concentrated and searched for that something. It was still there, he knew it, and when he found its feeble trace, he mentally grasped for it. He could not speak, or even smile in victory, so all he could do was feel pleased.
Forte..?
And then reality crashed onto him like a crumbling brick wall.
Memories returned, and with them the agonizing pain of the gash on the leg. It was strange, though, because he had never felt the pain so clearly before. Not even when his host was dragging his way through the sewers and up the tower's stairs. And that had been an awful experience.
Forte… Netto sounded slightly panicked, but mostly so tired that it was a wonder that he was even awake enough to speak coherently. I… I can't move… what's happening?
He would reply, really. He had no interest in making the kid more scared that what he already was, especially after going so far as to risk his life just to know the truth. But he simply couldn't. He could think though, but the boy didn't seem to be able to read his thoughts.
Forte couldn't deny that there was a big problem with them. Not only Netto couldn't move, but he couldn't even recall the simplest of programs that had been forcefully installed in him. And without a generic scan of their shared body and of his core program, there was no way he could find a way to solve whatever was happening to them.
It… it doesn't seem like we're in the hands of Dark Mu… the boy supplied, trying to calm down his nerves. They wouldn't… let us lay down like this, right?
The kid was right. There was no way that their enemy would let them rest on something so comfortable, whatever it was. They would keep them restrained with the Leeches, under heavy sedatives and as far away from any escape route as possible.
I can talk to you as if we were logged into a server, as he better analyzed their situation, Netto felt a bit calmer. But it doesn't seem like we are in one… I… I'm feeling like I have no body… completely different from last time…
There was a long pause of silence as both fell into their own thoughts. That is, until the pen stopped scraping and someone stood up from a wooden chair to stretch. The soft groan that filled the room had a deep tone to it, revealing that the person that had uttered it was male.
Whoever he is, Netto started as he tried to follow the man as he walked towards them. His steps were careful on the wooden floor, as if he didn't want to disturb, but at the same time they were dragging a little. He's tired.
Then the man was in front of them, his clothes swishing gently as he crouched down and placed a large, warm hand onto their upper left arm. Netto could only barely feel it, as if the sensation was mirrored to him from far away, but Forte felt it so clearly that he was amazed. The feeling of pressure and warmth was nothing like he had ever felt before with his normal frame. As if…
You know, Netto's voice was soft as he came to his same realization. I think you are in control.
If he could, Forte would have stared at his companion as if he had said the stupidest thing in the world, but despite the shock and the confusion, their thoughts were right. He was in control. The feelings were too clear, unlike when he felt them from the back of the boy's mind, to indicate otherwise.
But as much shocking that was, nothing could be compared to the feelings that overwhelmed Forte when the man cleared his throat and sighed.
"Will you ever be able to forgive me, Forte?" Cossack's voice was full of pain, shame and regret, and sounded like he was on the verge of tears. "For all the wrongs I did to you?"
Forte's thoughts froze and he felt the Netto's human heart quicken its pace as it responded to his distress. Muscles tensed and trembled under the man's touch, but they were too faint to be felt, so his creator never noticed that both he and the boy were conscious.
Cossack remained in silence for several long seconds, probably contemplating what to say to what he believed was an unconscious person, or in this case, two unconscious boys stuck in a single body. In the end, however, he gave a gentle pat on their upper arm and used his other hand to carefully roll them on their stomach so that he could have full access to their back.
Green eyes stared intently at the two golden protrusions surrounded by a purple line. Unlike everyone thought, however, those weren't just pretty decorations, but had been designed with a specific task in mind. Whenever Forte would be too weak after a harsh battle, or knocked out, the two converters on his back would collect energy from the surrounding area so that the navi would be able to recover without external help.
The process was extremely slow, however. At the time of their development, ten years ago, Cossack had been unable to render the two devices more powerful and keep them small so to not hinder Forte in his movements. And they didn't work in the real world.
It was understandable. After all, the devices were designed to collect the faint background electric energy that existed everywhere in the cyberworld, something that didn't exist in the real world outside of power cables and electronic devices. And even then, the charge could be too powerful for the weakened body to handle.
It was Yuichiro that came up with the brilliant idea of using the two special batteries that Netto and Forte had charged for Enzan when he had disguised himself as them to fool Dark Mu. The batteries had remained forgotten into the pocket of his lab coat until he started to think about a way to reproduce the navi's energy, or at least find a good substitute.
But as much as they had been lucky with that, there was still the problem that the batteries had a very limited charge capacity, and although they had been filled to the max, after about five hours they were almost empty.
The man sighed, letting his mind chase several thoughts and ideas on where to find another suitable energy source while he checked the cables that connected the two batteries to Forte's converters. Not having access to SciLabs's most advanced machinery, and despite Yaito having a lot of stuff at her disposal, they had ended up using a simple adhesive tape to keep the wires fixed in place.
Cossack hoped that the energy stored in the two batteries would be enough for Forte and Netto to at least wake up from their coma.
When he made sure that the tape wouldn't fall off, the man slowly rolled the boys back onto their right side and sat on a nearby chair, closing his eyes. He could not remember the last time he had slept. While he worked to understand the symbiosis between the two, time seemed to not exist, but now that he had taken a pause, long hours of writing hundreds of equations and diagrams were quickly crashing on him.
"Yuichiro is rubbing on me," he muttered in amusement as he relaxed his tired body. "I'm getting too old for sleepless nights."
As he slipped into a deep slumber, red eyes opened slightly and tried to stare at the man through a veil of blurriness.
.
.
Enzan was not happy.
He was close. So close that he could almost feel the person that had framed two innocent people, Cossack and Forte, within his grasp. Yet, he was at the same time so far away that the mission he had willingly taken felt almost impossible to complete.
The culprit, a scientist working for Tadashi Hikari, Netto's grandfather, had covered his tracks very well in the past. There were no certainty to the hints he had collected from the case files and from very old logs in the archives of both NetPolice and SciLabs, leaving him with just theories and dead ends.
"Enzan-sama," Blues's always welcomed voice filtered through the speakers of his computer and the boy looked up from a paper filled with his own scribbles and notes. "There is nothing of value in the newspaper archives."
Enzan sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Then there is no other way but to check out the personal records and journals of those who worked in SciLabs ten years ago," he leaned onto the back of his chair and looked out of the window of his office in IPC's main building. "We'll start with those who are still working in there, in particular those who have tried to harm Netto and Forte."
The boy wasn't keen in invading people's personal space, especially without an official permission. But waiting for a search warranty would take too long, and he had the suspicion that, as soon as the rumor of the Alpha Incident case being reopened got out, the man he was looking for would disappear.
Perhaps, he could say that, in his own way, he hated injustice as much as Netto did.
As Blues nodded and logged into the net to carry out his new orders, Enzan was left alone with his thoughts. His eyes moved away from the window and down onto a small paper calendar on his desk. It was simple and looked harmless, but as he flipped some of the pages, a red circle on one of the days made him stop and tense.
A little more than three months.
That was how long Netto had been missing.
Enzan released the pages of the calendar and watched as they flopped back onto their original position while his mind traveled to his friend. Doctor Hikari and Doctor Cossack, two of the best scientific minds on the planet, had answered some questions, in particular how that rare Mu metal was amplifying a miniature Dimensional Area and how Netto and Forte shared a symbiotic relationship with each other, but there were so many more to be answered…
What was "the code" that Dark Mu was so intent on having back?
He could understand wanting Forte back. The black navi was powerful, and if subdued to the will of the Emperor, he could be used as a tool for conquering the world, but a code?
"Why do I have the feeling that things aren't just as simple as they appears to be?"
Enzan hoped that Netto would be able to wake up soon and help them figure out what was happening and, hopefully, where Dark Mu's main base was located. Amerope was too big of a place to search without at least a hint.
But as he was starting to give up on that particular search, his eyes fell onto the photo of an ancient bowl with unknown symbols on it. He stared at it for several long seconds until he scoffed and shoved it aside. "There is no way it could be real…"
Yet, the more he denied it, the more he felt the urge to investigate this unbelievable path. After seeing Dimensional Areas, a planet getting almost digitalized and an alien navi hell bent on destroying it, he shouldn't discard something just because he had no proof that it existed.
As he glanced once again at the photo he had taken of the bowl, his hands grabbed the keyboard and started to type on it. If the fabled continent of Mu existed, then there were bound to be hints of its location somewhere.
"Hikari Netto," he muttered as he started to check out several pages depicting ancient ruins around the world. "What have you gotten into this time?"
The information that came up on the monitor of his computer was as farfetched as the idea of Mu actually existing, and none of it seemed to be useful to him. It was just a bunch of speculations, theories and stories on how Mu and its people could look like, what kind of culture there was and if it was really as advanced as the legend told.
But there was nothing concrete on its location. Some said it was at the bottom of one of the oceans, some were convinced that it was locked into an alternate dimension and many just thought that it had been destroyed completely by some apocalyptic event that their ancient and arcane science initiated.
All in all, it was like looking for something true on something that might be not real amongst information that could very well be made up by someone with a too large imagination. Enzan wasn't even sure what to consider or to discard.
"Perhaps this is not the right way to go at it," he muttered as he pushed the keyboard away from him and stared down at the piece of paper he had been writing on. So far, all he found pointed to Amerope and the oceans around it, which was a fact that he had known since the beginning. "It's a dead end…"
Yet, after seeing all those images of ruins and artifacts with those symbols, that sometimes were dated over two thousands years old, the boy felt even more convinced that Dark Mu's main base could be the lost continent of Mu.
As much as insane that was…
A blue shower of data materialized into his computer, and Enzan turned his eyes to look as his navi came back from his mission. And realized that he had spent over three hours in his research without even feeling the passage of time.
"I hope you had an easier time than I did, Blues," the boy greeted his partner with a small nod. If his navi had good news, it would make his time spent on a wild goose chase feel less wasted.
Blues frowned a bit, but nodded back and held up a hand holding a golden colored piece of compacted data. "Nothing much, Enzan-sama," he replied as he started to decompress the information and load it on his operator's computer so he could display it to him. "But what I found is something that might get us on the right track."
As the data started to flash through the screen, Enzan's neutral expression became harsh and his mouth was pulled into an angered frown while he read bits of info. "Do you know who did it?" to think that one of the people working in SciLabs was capable of selling classified and potentially dangerous data to someone outside the labs was something that made his stomach churn in disgust.
Blues shook his head. "I have no name associated with this," he replied, showing a particular file depicting the diagrams of an inner circuit of the old Dimensional Area converter. That device had fallen in disuse as soon as Wily had given SciLabs the plans for the generator and the schematics had been locked away under heavy security. "These transactions were made on the farthest reaches of SciLabs's net and I found the data only by coincidence."
The navi then paused and frowned, recalling in his mind how he had found the scattered data laying on the ground. He was on his way to SciLabs's net and its servers, but as soon as he entered it, something had caught his attention. He wasn't sure what it had been, but he had followed it nonetheless.
At first he had thought that it had been a virus, but when no attack came, he started to suspect that it was a spy from Dark Mu running off. The chase had lasted a few minutes, leading him off from the main path and into an old and disused one that ended abruptly against a firewall. He found no intruder, but it was there that he found the scattered data on the ground. Someone, after sending a copy through the firewall, had destroyed their own copy of the original, which was still secured within SciLabs.
Blues supposed he should feel lucky, but deep down he was feeling like he had been led there on purpose, as if someone wanted him to find those broken pieces of information.
"Netto was the first to suspect that SciLabs was being spied on," Enzan's voice broke the navi out of his thoughts. The boy was now scrolling the information looking for anything particular that could give him a good lead while tapping a finger on the desk. "That is why he never called by phone and instead sent me a postcard."
When he was done viewing all the bits of data that had survived deletion, Enzan sighed. "However, I would have never thought that there would be someone that sells information." That could explain how Dark Mu had gotten their hands onto the Dimensional Area technology to create the Materializers and the data on Cross Fusion.
Blues gave another nod, agreeing with his operator. "After I collected this data, I returned to my main mission," he continued as he started to upload on the computer what little he had found. "There isn't much. Personal journals and records are clean, but I checked the logs of ten years ago again. Things haven't changed from my last visit, but I tried to dig deeper into the system, and recovered a log that might help."
The list that Enzan started to read had several different names to it, but one in particular kept repeating over and over. Kurosaki Noboru was a man that had been fully intolerant of Forte's presence within SciLabs, and was convinced that the troubles with the net and the bugs that often appeared were the navi's doing.
Typing a few commands on his keyboard, Enzan used his credentials as NetSavior to take Kurosaki's ID file from SciLabs's archives. Noboru, age fifty-three, had been part of the team working on Alpha's project and was -and still kept his position nowadays- head for the development of the internal network's security and firewalls. The man was the same person that had recently tried to restrain and kill Netto, who had been posing as Forte.
"Blues," the boy called to his navi to gain his full attention. "I want this man under surveillance. If he tried to kill Forte both in the past and in the present for some form of revenge, what stops him from selling data to the enemy?"
"Yes, Enzan-sama," the navi replied with a small nod. He was as calm as usual, but deep down he felt a small thrill as he got ready to chase yet another criminal. "I will take care of this."
Enzan grinned as he watched Blues leave for the net to get their suspect under surveillance. The day was turning out to be good.
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Trying to walk towards the fridge with a nearly useless leg that was in constant pain, the inability to float and a few-hours-long-and-heated discussion with a voice in your head was not easy.
Forte was regretting even getting out of bed.
"Stop your pestering, Hikari," because he was still getting used to controlling an organic body, the words that came out were hoarse, faint and a bit slurred. At least it was his voice, and not Netto's, that filled the almost empty room. Almost, because his creator was still sleeping on the chair.
He wasn't sure how he could deal with him. Even after knowing the truth behind the whole mess that had been the Alpha Incident, facing the man that had given him life was something that Forte wanted to avoid at the moment.
Besides, he was too hungry to do anything but eat. Organics and their stupid need for organic food. If it was just him, and back into the net, he would have absorbed anything that came his way and his recovery would have been much quicker than this. He supposed he should be happy that they were both alive after the last battle and that nothing really important had been damaged. At the moment, however, he was just too… grouchy to care.
Seriously, Forte, Netto was as tired as Forte was, and if he concentrated, he could feel the sharp stings of pain coming from their left thigh and the terrible hunger that was constricting their stomach. Talk to him. This is your best chance at clearing things out!
The navi grunted out in annoyance, hating the fact that although he could now move as he pleased, he still couldn't punch the boy in the face. "It's none of your business!" he growled out as he grabbed the edge of the table and stopped to give their aching muscles a rest. "Leave me alone!"
Still, Forte couldn't help but slightly turn around and take another look at the slumbering man. Most of him wanted to never see him again, but a small part felt lured towards his creator. Yet, ten long years of suffering, hate and anger were hard to just forget and act like nothing had happened. No matter what Netto said about Cossack forgiving him.
Too tired and hurt to continue, Forte sat down onto a nearby chair with a muted groan and looked at the scattered papers on the table. He wasn't sure what they were all about. Didn't even care. The codes, graphs and handwritten notes were far too complex for even him, an AI program, to understand. But his gaze still fell onto a tiny piece of yellow paper with a quickly written scribble on it.
Symbiosis, Netto read out for him, his voice tinted with worry. I have a bad feeling about that…
Grateful that the boy had stopped annoying him with their previous topic of discussion, the navi started to sift through more papers, feeling strangely curious after reading the yellow note. If he concentrated and examined the information on them more carefully, he could recognize bits of his own coding that Doctor Cossack had written. But there was nothing in the room that could examine them to the point of breaking through their defenses and read his Core Program. Not even Dark Mu's computers had managed to do that in a week's time.
Maybe he wrote all this by memory, Netto suggested as he felt Forte's confusion. Dad does that a lot. He doesn't rely on computers as much as others do, so he keeps the most important data in his head. I can recognize his writing. No idea what all that stuff is about, though. We'd have to ask him…
Forte nodded. That his creator would remember parts of his Core Program made sense. The man was a genius when it came to programming a navi, or anything that had to do with it, and had been the one to create his GetAbility program. Something that no one else had been able to replicate.
Despite his troubled emotions caused by the closeness to his creator, his eyes softened as he read the notes that the man had scribbled almost everywhere. It had been so long since he last saw something like this and the feeling of familiarity was strangely welcomed. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it.
As he and Netto read more of the notes, forgetting about the hunger that had forced them out of the bed, they started to learn more about their Cross Fusion. A fusion that was on a molecular level, where flesh and data were melded together in a single big, yet working, mess inside a 'skin-tight' Dimensional Area that followed and shifted at even the smallest movement they did.
And worst of all, it seemed that neither Doctor Hikari nor Doctor Cossack knew how to separate the two without causing heavy damage. Netto was right in having a bad feeling about the whole 'symbiosis' issue.
So, basically, the boy's voice was strangely devoid of panic. We're stuck like this for who knows how long… Awesome!
Forte knew what sarcasm was, and although he had never seen Netto use it, he had to agree with him. With a body that was both flesh and data, that had no definite boundary between organic and energy, and with his Core Program in such a disarray that not even his own creator could make head or tails of it, the situation was just how the boy had defined it. 'Awesome'.
The navi rubbed his face with a hand and leaned onto the table with the other. "It's absurd," he grunted out as he glanced at the scattered papers through the space between his fingers. "What have they done to us? Why us anyway?"
I'm not sure about why me. All I remember is checking out a warehouse because of a leak of energy, still, Netto had the suspect that his incredible fortune had played a major role in it. He didn't know why, but things had always happened around him. From evil organizations that wanted to take over the world, to alien navis that wanted to destroy it. It was a perfectly normal thing in his life. But I have the feeling that you were taken because you are strong, Forte. And with that ability to copy other's moves and attacks, well, think where someone could go with… it…
Both boy and navi paused as they came to the same realization that Enzan had reached a few days before them. "GetAbility," Forte whispered, eyes narrowing and hand tensing against his face. "He wanted it, that despicable human."
How the head of Dark Mu wanted to take the navi's strength and abilities for himself without Forte lashing out in his brain -like he had done at the beginning with Netto- was something that the two still didn't know. The possibilities, however, weren't nice.
I wish I could remember, Netto murmured. How did we end up in Amerope when the last place I remember to be in was a warehouse in Densan City? How long have we been like this? I know you said it's about two months, but… I don't know about you, but I feel it was… longer…
Forte hummed as he closed his eyes and rubbed their wounded leg. Thorough all their reading, it had never stopped hurting. There was also a faint scratch on their left cheek and eyebrow, but it was a minor itch and it would disappear completely in a day or so. Provided that they found a source of energy to replenish their almost empty reserves.
At that thought, Forte sent a dark glare at the fridge sitting innocently on the other side of the room, uncaring that someone was starving. There was no way that he would be able to drag his way to it, no matter the amount of hunger he felt, and there was no way he was going to ask someone to help him out. Especially if that someone was his creator, who was still sleeping on the chair near the bed.
You know…I think you should really face him now, Forte, Netto had easily picked up the navi's emotions and had instantly associated them with Doctor Cossack. I don't want to push you around, but… talk to him. Or at least, listen to what he has to say. It'll do good to both of you.
"When did you become this wise, Hikari?" Forte was still not in the mood to talk about anything regarding the man that had created him. Yet, he had no will left to fight his companion. Maybe it was because he was too tired and hungry to do that.
The boy gave a mental shrug. It's what I think is the best way to do it, he replied casually. It's what I'd do, but again, I'm not you so it's your choice.
The navi hummed. Netto had left the final choice to him and, despite being annoyed by his insistence, he appreciated how the boy was acting. A part of him even wondered how his life would have turned out if the Netto of today was there with him ten years ago. Sure, the boy was nothing but a baby at the time he had been betrayed, but 'what ifs' were interesting things to ponder about.
"You and your stupid hero complex, Hikari," Forte eventually muttered as he closed his eyes again and tried to make sense of his confused emotions. He was so deep in his thoughts, however, that he never noticed that the man who had been sleeping on the chair had awakened and was now standing up.
Although he had managed to sleep some hours, sleeping on a chair was not something a man of his age should do. Sure, being in his late forties couldn't be really considered as old, but Cossack was starting to feel the small aches in his bones when he strained his body. He blamed it all on his traveling, the rather poor care he gave himself in the past years and a wound in his heart that had never healed.
"It's something that runs in the family, Forte" he explained. As soon as he saw the black figure sitting on the chair, he knew that it was his son. He couldn't explain it. Perhaps it was the way how he sat at the table that had tipped him off, and when the navi had spoken, he knew for sure. "I think it might be genetic, too."
Forte didn't reply. Didn't even move a muscle. Still, despite his lack of motion, he could feel Netto's human heart respond to his fear, anxiety and distress by quickening its pace. It was almost painful and his eyes darted around in search of a quick exit that didn't involve flying out of the closed window or painfully drag his way to the door.
But when Doctor Cossack walked to the fridge and looked inside, Forte forgot about his previous thoughts of escaping the room and watched as the man took something out and inserted it into a microwave. The silence between them was thick, not even the humming sound coming from the working electronics in the room helped in easing the tension.
"It has been so long," the man started as he kept his eyes on the small red numbers of the microwave's counter. His voice was so different from the one Forte remembered. Not because the tone had changed, but because it had lost that cheery undertone that had characterized him in the past. "I… I'm sorry."
It was all that Cossack could say, and felt extremely stupid at it, too. He had spent long hours searching for the right words, had composed long, detailed explanations on why he couldn't help his son when he needed it, but in the end, after all that thinking, all he could say were those two pathetic words.
Yet, he had said them with so much sadness and guilt that Forte looked at the man's back in shock. Before all this happened, he was sure that he would have scoffed and felt offended by those words, but now… now everything was different. And he could feel Netto's silent presence. Always there to back him up even if he didn't want it…
"That was lame, I know," Cossack continued after the microwave pinged to signal that whatever was inside was warm. There was more fiddling as he took the food from the inside, then walked to the table and placed a bowl in the middle of it before taking a seat in front of the black navi. "But it's the first thing that came out. Nothing else would."
Forte watched as the man folded his hands on the table and looked down at them in sadness and guilt, unable to say anything more than what he had already done. He realized that his creator was waiting for him to say something, to do something, maybe even kill him with a simple swipe of his arm. Yet, the more he tried to do something, the more he was left there in a frozen stupor.
He felt no anger, no burning desire for revenge, no hate. Nothing except confusion and anxiety. He wanted out, wanted it to end, but he simply could do nothing. It was like being caught by a few Leeches, with the only difference that here his body simply refused moving opposed to being unable to move.
They spent long minutes like that, until Cossack gave a muted sigh and stood up, understanding that things weren't going as he had wished. He had always known that it would have been hard, that there would have been awkward moments, but a lack of response, any kind of response, was what told him that he had failed. Again.
Don't let him go!
"Wait."
Forte was as surprised as his creator was when he heard his own voice calling out to the man. He never had the intention of talking to him, neither now nor later, but when Netto's shout filled his head, his mouth moved on its own, following a desire that was buried deep down in his consciousness. For a moment he was not sure what he should do. He had no experience with this kind of situations. His way of dealing with things involved fighting and maybe some words, not just words.
Then, he came to a sudden realization. He had been born as a fighter, he had always been sure of himself, headstrong in his decisions and uncaring of what others thought of him. That was why he looked up at his creator and hardened his gaze. He was not going to let the stupid feelings of awkwardness and anxiety get the better of him!
Cossack's green eyes stared in his son's red ones for a long moment, then sat down again with a nod. Forte willingly giving him a chance to explain himself was what he had always wanted, and he would be a fool to let this single chance slip through his fingers.
There was the issue of how to start, though. Despite knowing the story first hand, without his son asking questions it would be hard to explain, and as he stole another glance at the navi in front of him, he knew that he would not ask. Just listen.
"I have no family. I was too dedicated to my work to marry and have kids," the man started, thinking that starting from the very beginning was the best idea. "But when I first activated you and you opened your eyes to stare at me in curiosity… I felt like the happiest man in the world and finally understood why Yuichiro was so happy to be a father even before his son was born."
He chuckled a bit at remembering the times when the young Hikari would space out and just smile for entire minutes before someone woke him up from his happy daze or he crashed into something because he wasn't paying attention to where he was going. His spells of daydreaming even extended a few months after Netto's birth. It was both sweet and funny, and it never got old in his eyes. Especially after Forte was activated.
However, his mood sobered when he remembered what came next. "But being proud of you was not the same as being a good father. I should have sat down with you and explained that although you wanted to help, although your way of troubleshooting the system was extremely effective, not many liked it," his eyes filled with shame for himself and guilt. "I was such a fool… to think that everyone would eventually see you for what you truly were… a sentient being capable of taking decisions on his own and feel the same emotions humans feel…"
Forte stared and shivered at the mention of people thinking about him as a something rather than someone. Maybe if they had taken in consideration the fact that he was a lot more like them than a navi of that time, his life wouldn't have been screwed so badly.
"And then there was Alpha," as Doctor Cossack resumed his tale, the navi's eyes hardened for a moment upon remembering the real cause of his and the network's problems. "After I was forced to restrain you, Alpha went unchecked and the bugs overwhelmed the system. I received a mail from Yuichiro just as I got home, telling me that the entire network was collapsing. Fueled by fear of what might happen to you, I turned around to go back to SciLabs, but was stopped by a few policemen. No amount of explanation and pleading helped me get out of arrest. They believed that I was the direct cause of Alpha's wrongdoings and that I was going back to SciLabs to finish the job."
Forte felt like stone. He knew the entire story from beginning to end, from his own point of view and from what the police's files had told him, but hearing it from his creator was completely different. He could hear all the different emotions in the man's voice, ranging from sorrow to guilt to self-shame, and it made him feel weird. As if something was crushing him into a pulp.
Cossack was really berating himself for how things had gone. That was not what a father was supposed to do, after all. "I feel so ashamed, Forte," a lone tear slid down his left cheek and disappeared into his beard. "I should have come looking for you sooner than this. To at least give you the explanations you deserved. But I was scared of your reaction, scared of more pain… so I left."
He was glad that events, but mainly Yuichiro's son, had given him the opportunity to talk to Forte face to face and not through a screen. It was more personal, more meaningful. And despite feeling unworthy of being a father, he still considered Forte as his son, so he wanted to at least meet him one last time before dying. No matter the outcome, because it meant everything to him.
"I'm tired of running away from everything. I'm ready for whatever reaction you will have, even the most severe," despite he whispered his words, the man lifted his head to look at Forte right in his eyes. "No matter what, Forte. I do love you, son."
Forte stared, unable to decide what to do as the man sitting in front of him was ready to accept whatever decision he would take and not regret it. He wanted to shout, he wanted to be angry and to hate as they were emotions that he was accustomed to. Even attacking was something he could do without effort. All he had to do was swing an arm and hit his creator on the head and watch him die a slow and painful death.
Still, the navi sat there, not even blinking away from that steady emerald gaze that was searching for a reaction from him. Any kind of reaction.
And in the end he did react, but not in a way that everyone expected.
He leaned forwards and extended his right arm, but instead of charging up an attack to hit Cossack right in the face, he grabbed the cooling bowl of broth and carried it in front of him. There was a moment of pause as he watched his reflection on the clear liquid and pondered about how much he had changed in the little time he had been stuck together with Netto.
See? Netto's voice was a welcome change from the deafening silence that had filled the room after the man had finished his tale. Don't you feel better?
Forte blinked and stared into the reflection of his eyes. For a moment he thought he had seen Netto's brown eyes, looking smug and triumphant, and that stole him a tiny smile. "Maybe," he muttered, sipping some of the broth and finding its taste intense despite its smooth simplicity.
He looked down at the bowl with a surprised expression. No wonder Netto was so fond of food. The stuff was good.
.
.
By the time Cossack walked out of the large tree house to sit on a deckchair near the door with a tired, but content sigh, Yuichiro had returned from his short visit to his wife. The woman, after seeing that her son was getting better, was recovering her usual cheeriness. Although still worried about Netto, and even the navi that he was fused with, she had felt that by standing by their side all day would only hinder her husband and his two colleagues in finding a way to help the two boys.
That was why she visited only a couple of times at day, preferring to spend time in the mansion to study foreign recipes to cook for Netto and Forte when they would wake up. Knowing her son, he would be delighted to eat something good after three months of eating only whatever he could find. Yaito and Meiru were dividing their time in helping her and helping Dekao in searching the net for anything useful.
So far, however, they had only found out that certain navis from the Undernet were contacting people unsatisfied with the current society to have them join Dark Mu. Dekao and Gutsman were so focused on their self imposed mission to find information that they had managed to travel to the zone of the desert where the criminals met.
The boy had described the place to be a large, sandy square located in the middle of rock formations, with a black market for chips and programs of all sort and a couple of boards to post whatever insult to the surface came to the user's mind. After hearing it, Enzan had suspected that Dark Mu used that same board to identify those who would gladly join their organization.
With Rockman and Blues too known by net society to be part of the NetSavior group, which was under the direct orders of Commissioner Kifune -a NetPolice employee- Enzan had decided to leave the task of finding more information to the trio.
All in all, they were starting to make progress, and everyone was feeling fueled with energy.
Even the two doctors sitting on the small balcony of the tree house felt energized despite the large lack of sleep.
"I'm guessing that it went well," Yuichiro started, watching Meiru, Yaito and Dekao walk in the distance, probably taking a pause from their mission to talk about their findings and make sense of them. He would have to thank them for all the effort they put into helping his son. "You have been in there for a while now."
Cossack smiled and looked up at the green leaves of the tree, eyes softening and feeling his spirit as light as air. "He was in control, Yuichiro," he started. He felt so… giddy at the moment that if he had the physique, he would start running laps around the Ayanokouji's mansion and laugh while doing it. "He gave me a chance."
Netto's father nodded and looked down at the folder he was holding in his lap. Inside there were scans of Netto's head that had been taken when the doctor had demanded to check the boy's health. His son had a swelling of blood in his brain that would probably keep him into a coma until his body absorbed the excess, and it was too deeply located and too complicated to manually drain it, so all they could do was to wait and hope.
That Forte had taken over and was controlling the shared body could make sense, as much as baffling that was. The two were in a symbiosis, and it was possible that the navi had found a way, willingly or unconsciously, to be in control so that he could take care of their needs and not be helpless if they were attacked.
Yuichiro smiled and tapped a finger on the armchair, happy that Cossack had been given the second chance he deserved. "How is he doing?"
The older man sobered and hummed, thinking. When he was sitting in front of his son, he had been too busy wallowing in self pity and guilt to really take a deep look at him. "As well as they can be," he replied, remembering how, after drinking half of the broth, Forte had stumbled back to bed and collapsed on it with a tired grumble. "They seem to look for a light source, though. I've seen Forte shift until his back was under a few patches of sun. If they can drain some energy from sunrays, that might be how they have survived for three days without food, water and a large gash on the leg."
Netto's father nodded, memorizing that small detail for later. "That's interesting, but I wanted to know how Forte is doing. Emotionally."
There were several long seconds of silence, then Cossack smiled gently and looked at his colleague. "He's… not sure of what he should do now. How he should react," he replied, remembering how his son had been barely moving while he told him his tale, and how at the end, when Forte was looking at his reflection on the broth, he was sure he had glimpsed a different pair of eyes. "But your son is with him, Yuichiro. Forte is not alone."
Yuichiro chuckled. Leave it up to Netto to befriend a troubled and emotionally closed navi like Forte and drag him out of the dark pit he had hidden into. "Netto is a good boy, even if he has a tendency to rush into things. He always do what he think is right. And not just because it is 'the right thing to do' and he has to do it, but he does it because he wants to and believes in it."
Cossack became serious, but his eyes sparkled with that cheeriness that had disappeared after the Alpha Incident. "Your son is a godsend, Yuichiro. A hero at heart."
Netto's father laughed heartily, then shook his head. "Yes, but don't let him hear that, though. It'll only get to his head."
At that, the two exploded into loud laughs that rung through the small wood of Yaito's immense garden.
.
.
"Meijin, are you sure this is the right way?"
Rockman was not used to be operated by someone that was not Netto, but he had to do this. With Enzan and Blues busy with their own search for Dark Mu and anything connected to it, and with Roll, Glyde and Gutsman too weak to get that deep into the Undernet Desert, he was the only one to have the necessary skills to check out the deepest parts of the net. And so far, Meijin had proven to be an exceptional operator despite not being used to partnering with the blue navi.
"I'm positive, Rockman," the young man replied as a small floating window appeared next to Rockman. From where they were standing, on top of a large rocky formation in the middle of a wasteland, Meijin could see the extremely large sandstorm in the distance. "From what I gathered from the UnderSquare's boards, this is the place where Forte was last spotted before he was seen in the real world a month and half later."
Rockman frowned and looked at the expanse of sandy dunes and occasional spire of dark tan rock. All in all, the sight was depressing and lonely and even viruses were rare so deep into the desert. And now that he looked closer, he couldn't even see those kind of viruses that lived there, as if they had been scared away by something worse.
"Maybe you're right," the navi said to Meijin, jumping down the cliff and walking through the dunes, keeping his eyes open for any enemy, virus or navi, that could attack him. "This might be the right place where to start."
They weren't exactly sure what they were looking for. Perhaps a link to Dark Mu's network and servers, or maybe just a hint to where to find the actual base, but Rockman was tired of sitting around and waiting. He was worried for his operator, yes, but he wanted to help everyone out as best as he could, and Meijin asking him to check out the deepest part of the Undernet had been the perfect occasion.
"I don't know how Forte can live down here," Rockman muttered to himself, feeling unnerved by the silence broken only by the sound of his steps. He suddenly turned around and frowned as he let his eyes scan the dunes to his left. For a moment he had thought that he had heard the sand shift, but when nothing moved, he sighed and shook his head. "Must be my imagination…"
After that, his journey through the desert was uneventful. For hours, nothing moved, nothing flew into the black sky and no sound filtered through the thick silence. Even Meijin had started to feel unnerved by the stillness. Rockman had become increasingly alert as time passed, but that didn't help him in the slightest when the sand suddenly exploded under his feet, flying high into the cyber sky along with him.
He rolled into the air uncontrollably several times, then, when he finally regained some control and looked under him, his green eyes widened. The sand was still flying everywhere, but was quickly parting away as a giant shark-like head poked out of the surface with the speed and violence of a train.
The head was almost as large as a football field, devoid of eyes or nose, and with thick and hard looking plaques of the same color of the sand. As the beast pushed upwards with its body that looked like a scaled worm with shark fins, it opened its mouth and hundreds of large needle like teeth glistened in the Undernet's diffused light, screaming their deadliness to the giant shark-worm's prey.
It was only thanks to Meijin's fast reflexes that Rockman got out of the situation unharmed by being forcefully logged out of the net.
"Now we know how Forte was captured so easily," the blue navi said as he reappeared into the safety of his PET. He was still shaken by the close encounter. "I never felt it get close to me. It was as if it didn't exist…"
The young man nodded, remembering seeing a smaller version of the beast swimming through the sands of the fake Undernet Desert that Dark Mu had created for Forte's consciousness. "This might be a problem, but now we know that the link to their servers is somewhere in there. This thing seems to be acting as a guard."
Rockman nodded, and hoped that the large shark-like worm was never summoned out of its guard duty to battle on the surface net. It would be really hard to defeat it considering that it remained hidden and undetected until it attacked. And with that size, it could destroy the largest net city in a matter of minutes.
"I hope it wasn't loaded with the code that lets viruses materialize in the real world…"
Meijin sighed and nodded, his eyes scanning the computer room that Yaito had kindly let him use to check out the net. There were several tables with computers on them, but until that moment he had only used two. One to keep eyes on Rockman while he moved through the net and the other to check out a commercial navi that he had sent to the UnderSquare to read the boards and collect any info he found. "Let's hope, but let's not count on that…"
Rockman had the sudden feeling that things were brewing somewhere, and that this moment of peace was just like the famous 'calm before the storm'.