Disclaimer: I don't own Rockman.exe/Megaman battle network or any of it's components. There's a few OC's in the fic, but that's it.
Warnings: Boy Love, some heavy language.

Sean Obihiro was the ex-gospel leader who had repented his crimes by serving as a valuable information source concerning the WWW and the Undernet in general. But Chaud didn't care about that, nothing could stop him from hating the boy. Who cared if he had lost his parents at early age? Who cared if he was ignored by his relatives, and fit the stereotype of a lonely rich boy? Who would even care if the kid was a genius? Chaud was all of that too: Mother had died when he was about six, father had ignored him and his wishes most of his life, he was rich, had little friends, and he graduated college two years ago. Yet you didn't see him start up netmafia's and conduct organised netcrime!

And Lan was talking to him, being friends...

Quickly, without thinking, he moved he moved towards the pair.

"So Lan, you finally woke up!" he said.

Lan turned his head and Sean looked at him curiously.

"Chaud!" Said Lan enthusiastic, his face brightening. "Where were you this morning?"

"This morning?" Interjected Sean confused.

"Ah, well," Stammered Lan, trying to find a way to explain himself, but Chaud wouldn't let him.

"He stayed the night at my room"

Lan stared at him with slight confusion, his face going red.

"I see" Replied Sean, "But why weren't you in your room when Lan woke up" he continued, directing his eyes to Lan.

Lan looked highly uncomfortable under Sean's stare, and Chaud wondered what exactly was going on, but he none the less replied: "I went to look for ProtoMan, my navi."

Sean's face transformed into a nasty expression: "must be fun to have your navi run away from you all the time..." He sounded almost musingly.

"At least he knows he can without fearing punishment..." Chaud replied coolly, he wasn't going to let Sean win.

Lan however looked extremely uncomfortable, not just from the look Sean had given him, but from their little argument in general. "Guys...?"

Sean noticed Lan's lack of comfortableness: "It was nice to chat with you again, Chaud" He muttered monotonously, "But Lan and I should really be getting our breakfast, shouldn't we, Lan?"

"Eh?" Was Lan's intelligent reply.

But Sean was already walking toward the doors of the dining hall, so Lan turned around on more time. "I'm going with Sean now, but I'll see you later, okay?" He asked with a sad smile, and then he followed the grey haired boy into the dining hall. At that moment, Chaud felt like he wanted to lash out and strangle Sean, but he let it slide and watched his friend disappearing into the dining hall.

As he stood there, the boy contemplated following the other two, but he supposed that Lan wouldn't be able to appreciate his company with Sean so close.
That, and he felt that ProtoMan was getting uneasy again...

Chaud continued down the well-lit hall, trying to find the training room.

ProtoMan thought the training didn't go as well as he would've liked. This was because Chaud seemed very much out of it during training, almost daydreaming. ProtoMan even suspected that it had something to do with their meeting with Mister Obihiro and Lan before, as Chaud had been like this ever since then. The whole thing annoyed ProtoMan to no end, as it was terribly embarrassing to run from a mettaur because Chaud hadn't injected a battlechip in time.

In general, ProtoMan would say he deeply disliked the developments of the past few days:

First Chaud was 'catching up' then he and MegaMan were witness of said 'catching up' and now Chaud was daydreaming.

Others might've found this cute, but the red navi had absolutely no interest in love, and thought that if his operator had to be in love, he shouldn't let it get in the way of his work. It was just highly unprofessional, and it annoyed ProtoMan to no end.

He decided to voice his opinion: "Sir" He called.

"Yes ProtoMan?"

"While I'm sure to be happy for you that you are in love, but please stop daydreaming, we're training." He said monotonously.

The response was as expected, very un-chaudlike: "I'm what?" But the boy's face tinted red, and he averted his eyes before trying a more sarcastic approach: "Pray do tell, ProtoMan, with whom should I be in love then?"

"With the person of last night? Unfortunately, we know what you two have done..."

"What?" His operator asked incredulously "How do you know, and what do you mean by 'we'?"

ProtoMan was truly amazed that Chaud had forgotten about the connection between Lan and MegaMan. Being too subtle would obviously not work today. "Sir, you do remember that Lan and MegaMan are officially twins, do you not?"

"Yes..." At that point, Chaud seemed to realise what his navi was getting at: "The connection..."

"Indeed." Replied ProtoMan, while he observed how the skin colour of his master started to clash with his with his blouse.

"I'm sorry." The boy stammered, looking shocked "That wasn't my intention..."

"I doubt it was." ProtoMan replied coldly.

After a minute or so, he broke the silence: "Sir, shall we continue training?"

Chaud nodded, and activated the training program again.

The training was finished quietly, but Chaud hadn't recovered from the shock yet, and question were still running amok in his mind: So what he had done to Lan was also felt by MegaMan? Did that mean he had sex with the navi too? Or worse, did that mean he had raped Lan's twin brother without knowing it? Did Lan know? How did his navi feel about it?

The more he thought about it, the more his head was being filled with questions. The fact that ProtoMan was quite obviously angry with him didn't help matters either. Was he angry because of what happened? Or was he annoyed about something else?

Aside from all these things, Chaud found himself walking to the battledome. The first fight had started already, and Chaud looked at a big screen detailing the fight, to find the contestants: One one side it was Baryl with Colonel.exe and on the other side it was this kid called Hector Nasso with a navi named Pheonix.exe.

Chaud momentarily frowned at the clichéd name of the navi, but then he recalled that he knew someone who had named his navi 'MegaMan' of all things. Remembering what he had done to that person, he quickly returned his attention to the fight.

As far as Chaud knew, Hector Nasso was the son of Nicolas Nasso, the president of ESTek, but from looking at the fight, he also learned that the boy favoured fire related ranged attacks, and that he had a female navi, who was successfully summoning a flame tower, while dodging Colonel's HeroSword attack.

Colonel, as a melee navi, was at disadvantage against a ranged navi such as Phoenix, and the fact that the dark clad navi was being being locked in due half the battle field having turned into a lava pool, was not helping his case.

Upon seeing the lava, Chaud made a mental note to include an ice-seed chip in his folder, if he were ever to fight the boy, but he couldn't say he was surprised when Colonel lost the battle, even tough it was the first time he saw Nasso fight.

Trough the speakers it was announced that the next fight would be between Anetta with PlantMan.exe and Reiko with FlashMan.exe. The match-up was an interesting one, seeing how on both sides had been hackers in the WWW in it's second uprising This meant not only that they knew how the other fought, but also that both had Willy's version of the synchronisation technique at their command.

The only thing Chaud could use to predict the outcome of the fight, was that PlantMan was a wood type, and FlashMan was an electric type. This meant that PlantMan Had a significant advantage toward FlashMan. Of course, Reiko could negate this disadvantage by choosing the correct chips. But Chaud knew from experience that most people usually didn't bother picking the correct ones, so he didn't count on it.

In fact, the only person of which he knew that did such a thing was Lan. But then again, Lan's speciality was the ability to change his fighting style at a whim, so it's expected from him to be so flexible. In contrast with Chaud himself, who preferred to stick to one style, but use the correct chips when necessary.

Finding that his train of thought had brought him yet again to Lan, he wondered where the young boy was. But Chaud figured that Lan would still be in the company of that grey haired thing called Sean, so he didn't feel particularly interested in joining Lan. None the less, he searched the crowd for a glimpse of the boy.

The dome was rather large, but fortunately, not crowded, and Chaud spotted Lan. As expected, Sean was next to him, chatting vigorously. Chaud wondered what they were talking about. The fight? The food? The past few years? Him? If they were talking about him, what were they telling each other? 'Hey Lan, that Chaud guy's an asshole, isn't he?' 'He's not so bad, he dry-humped me last night.' Chaud quickly shook away that ridiculous conversation in his head. Even Lan wouldn't have brought it like that.

But he still couldn't shake of the conversation. If he could get closer, he might be able to overhear what they were saying though.

Before he could think twice, he caught himself planning on how to get close enough to overhear everything, by going on that balcony and sit a few rows behind Lan and Sean.

However, Chaud was burning with curiousity and he figured that satisfying his curiousity was worth taking the risk of getting caught.

So after taking one last look at the fight(PlantMan was happily strangling FlashMan, and Chaud sincerely hoped that the navi had psychiatric treatment.) Chaud left for the balcony, navigating himself through long white halls to get there. When he got there, the was surprised to find out the balcony had been hired by miss Millions

Chaud's feelings about miss Millions were mixed: On one hand she was a surprisingly endearing lady in all her vileness. Yes, she was cruel, but the rich lady was very strong as well as a great business woman. On the other hand, she had the worst mood swings, often cause by sheer boredom, and Chaud wasn't sure if wanted to get in one of her bad moods.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, miss Millions made his thoughts of uncertainty in vain, as she saw him in the door opening. "Mister Chaud, what an utter delight to see you here." She said, the words falling out of her mouth as if they were mercury, "Please, why don't you join me?"

Seeing as this got him closer to Lan and Sean, he accepted her offer.

"It's a delightful battle, isn't it?" She said. Chaud looked at the battle field in front of him.

'Delightful' and 'fight' weren't really the words he would use to describe the scene that was played out in the arena. 'Horrendous slaughtering' was more descriptive. It was then that his mind decided to remember that Anetta had access to the synchronisation technique. Chaud swallowed out of nervousity, and decided that he would like to stay away from the redhead from now on.

"Yes it is very delightful." He replied while attempting to smile at miss Millions.

She smiled back.

"Miss Anetta is nothing compared to Sean though." She gestured at the boy at the other end of the balcony. He and Lan were huddled together, and Sean was wispering something into Lan's ear. What were they saying? What was sean talking about? What was Lan listening to?

Chaud felt his disgust for the grey haired boy return in full force.

"I'm not surprised." He said in a low tone. He turned back to miss Millions, who was observing him with a very pensive look.

After a moment, she replied: "I feel the same, but you well-known hatred is putting up quite a display, mister Chaud" Shooting him an unimpressed look, she continued: "I can, however, assure you that Sean is not like you perceive him to be."

This made a bell rinkle in the boy's head. "You're sponsering him?" he asked. She said nothing and just sipped her ever-present wine.

Chaud looked back at Sean and Lan. Sean seemed annoyed at something, moving his lips quite vehemently. Lan was listening to him with a sad frown. Chaud tried to make out what sean was saying by reading his lips: 'Asian ach so'? That couldn't be right. He tried re-enacting Sean's lip movements. "Such an asshole." Then he heard an angry snort next to him. Miss Millions was giving him a particularly vile look, and it occurred to him, he shouldn't have said that out loud. He decided to say nothing and stared out onto the battlefield.

PlantMan had won the battle and was currently standing there with a cocky grin on his face, receiving multiple cheers from his fans. After Anetta logged him out, the boyish voice of Ribitta resounded through the stadium "And after this won-der-ful battle between nature and technology, we still have two more top of the bill fights before lunch break! For those who are hungry, don't be shy and order a big hot dog from our FUNDOG employees!"

"Well said, Ribitta." Yelled a low male voice through the speakers. "Now for our next fight!"

Ribitta's voice took over the intercom again: "In our next fight, we shall see the true power of fire, for he's here! The man with hair the colour of fire and a burning passion for the battlefield! Ladies and gentlemen, give a scorching hot welcome to Mister... MATCH!"

The crowd clapped enthusiasticly as Mister Match walked onto the stage. Chaud knew the man as an another ex-WWW hacker, and he wondered what all these hackers were doing at the Poseidon tournament. Lan trusted the guy though, even though said guy tried to blow up his house and later SkyLab. But then again, Lan trusted too many people, like Sean.

Chaud looked at the pair again, to his surprise Sean had gotten up and was turning around.

And for a moment, Chaud and Sean had direct eye contact.

With fascination Chaud watched how Sean's orange-red eyes looked at him in shock, realising that he might have heard the conversation. The other boy's face turned away, face red, in what Chaud supposed was anger and embarrassment . This attracted Lan's attention, and caused him to understand the situation. "Chaud, I didn't know you were there!" He smiled at him.

Suddenly, Sean ran was him, muttering a quick good-bye to miss Millions before heading out to the hallway.

"Don't let me down boy!" yelled miss Millions, her voice suddenly sound raw and proud, and Chaud had the feeling he was sitting next to a lioness.

"Hey Chaud," Called Lan, "Come sit next to me."

Chaud looked at miss Millions. She looked back and said "Well, go on then!"

He didn't need more encouragement to get up and went over to Lan, sitting down as the announcers mentioned something about a devil girl.

Lan smiled brightly at him, and Chaud felt his whole body heat up, as if he had become a human heater, ready for someone to put their socks on for drying. He gave a small smile back, but Lan's attention was at the battlefield already. "Look, it's Shuuko with AquaMan!" Chaud turned to the battlefield too, and saw that on the opposite side of the redheaded ex-hacker, the polace was taken by a cute blue haired girl with a very sad aura about her. Chaud wondered why the announcers had called her a 'devil girl' as she only seemed to induce pity with him.

When he told Lan, the other boy agreed with him in pitying her, but her explained that her nickname was due the amount of bad luck this girl had. Chaud found this a bit vague, but then the power fell out. "Nevermind" he said defeated, while Lan shot into laughter.

ProtoMan didn't notice much of the power outage except that the number of wi-fi signals went down massively. This initially alerted him, as it could be the work of hackers, but Roll, who had a program guide, reassured him that it was just because Shuuko was on stage. At his gesture of confusion, she knowingly said: "Don't ask, it's complicate."

The notion that he was too stupid to understand earned the pink navi a glare, though ProtoMan supposed the message never came across due his visor, which only made him even more annoyed.

He met up with Roll in Lan's PET as MegaMan invited him to watch the battles with them. Roll apparently came in only a few hours ago, through a satellite connection, and even though she annoyed him now, he rather liked the her. He even found himself happy to see her again, even thoguh he didn't know her very well.

"Shuuko and AquaMan are known for their bad luck." Explained MegaMan. "Hence the 'devil girl'ofcourse." added SnakeMan, who had joined them from miss Millions PET. "I wonder what is taking them so long." he sissed while staring at the black screen that should have shown the fight, but instead said 'keinen signale' being software from Kingsland.

"I haven't got a clue either." said MegaMan "You never know in these situations, for we can guess, we won't be able to see the fight till tomorrow."

"Oh please don't say that!" replied SnakeMan. "Miss Millions is going to have a fit if she won't see her dear Sean fight today!"

"Obihiro?" asked ProtoMan, SnakeMan nodded.

"Yes, the next fight will be between FreezeMan and SkeletonMan" Said Roll, pointing at the names in her program guide.

"You don't say, a fight that isn't completely predictable" was ProtoMan's scathing reaction.

Roll smiled "It seem that the majority of the fights this afternoon won't be decided through type weakness."

"I see" Replied ProtoMan out of politeness.

"Hey MegaMan," SnakeMan again "You wouldn't have chairs, would you?"

MegaMan looked embarrassed "I've forgotten them, haven't I?"

"Unless they're invisible" said ProtoMan.

MegaMan looked hurt from that reply, but searched for chair applications anyway. A few minutes later, MegaMan booted up four chairs, which were neon pink for some vague reason. Roll sat down immidiatly, not having a problem with the colour, and ProtoMan, who couldn't be bothered eihter, sat down next to her.

SnakeMan however, stared at the chair dubiously, and then at MegaMan, also dubiously. "Is something wrong" Asked MegaMan with an annoyed tone.

"Uh, well... the colour..." was SnakeMan's reply.

"Reprogram it if it's such a bother" Interjected ProtoMan "But hurry up, the system's back on." he said gesturing to the screen showing Shuuko in complete distraught and Match trying to comfort her.

ProtoMan sat back, listening to the clichéd commentary of Ribitta. The might be predictable, but it could still be amusing.

TBC

Author's Notes:
Second chapter up, finally!
I've been buzy with a lot of other stuff, so I'm happy to have finished this chapter before Christmas, even though the plot isn't moving quite yet...(I'm still setting things up.)
Don't forget to check the Razing Ragnarok section in my profile to see a pic I drew of Chaud and ProtoMan, as they appear in this fic.
And seeing english isn't my first language, nor am I very experienced at writing, so if there's anything about the fic that feels wrong to you, don't be too shy to notify me!