Ai Star: That's great! I wasn't sure if I could pull the body-switching thing off without too much confusion. I'm glad you liked it!

XxBlueacidxX: Here it is!

Editor: kaffinee

I don't own Rockman EXE.

Child

It was hard to breath. Sometimes, it felt like the breathing had stopped.

There was pain everywhere.

Couldn't move.

Couldn't scream.

Couldn't see.

Couldn't hear.

Where was this place? Why was there only pain?

Painpainpainithurtsithurtsithurts—

Why isn't there anyone here? Shouldn't there be… no, can't remember.

Want to leave. Want to not hurt anymore.

Nodontthepainmeanslivingbutithurtsithurtssomuchstopitplease—

A single coherent thought slowly formed.

PleasepleasehelpdontwantthepainanymoreSOMEONEHEL—

Netto jolted up in bed, tears running down her face and a hand slapped over her mouth in an attempt to prevent any screams from escaping. Her other hand clutched the bedsheets tightly, her entire body shaking in terror from the nightmare. It had been so long since the last one, and she had thought they disappeared completely. Apparently not.

The PET on her desk—Rockman's—flickered on, and Netto quickly wiped away her tears away. Rockman appeared on the screen soon, his skin a bit paler than usual. Had he caught a glimpse of her dream?

"N-Netto-kun…" His voice shook, causing him to stutter a bit. "…What was that?"

"Just a nightmare," she replied curtly, unwilling to think about it anymore. (Painpainpleasestopdon'twant—) "I'll be fine." She tried to relax, taking deep, slow breaths to calm herself. "Thanks, though."

"That's what partners do, right?"

Netto smiled weakly and nodded, lying back down and pulling the covers up to her chin. "Yeah. Good night, Rockman."

"Good night, Netto-kun." The light faded, leaving Netto alone with her thoughts.

That nightmare had to be connected to her amnesia, but she couldn't figure out how. And if whatever happened had caused her that much pain, did she really want to know?

Soft humming attracted Netto's attention, and she stilled. It was Forte, humming a lullaby that she had only heard a few times. Of course he would do that to get her to sleep after a nightmare. Netto yawned, closing her eyes.

'Good night, Forte.'

When she fell asleep again, it was without nightmares.

"Oy, Netto-kun," Dekao called out, speeding up to her on his scooter. Meiru joined them, humming cheerfully. The final bell had rung, and most of the students were leaving the school. "How about a match at Game Soul?"

"Sure!" Netto nodded, and then turned to look at Meiru. "Are you going to come?"

She shook her head sheepishly. "I have a piano lesson."

"Oh, I see." There was the sound of running footsteps, and then someone bumped into Netto. She stumbled and fell, scraping her hands on the concrete.

"Sorry!" The boy who ran into her called out, not slowing down and continued on his way. Netto winced, more from surprise than from pain, and noticed a card that was on the ground beside her.

She picked it up, slowly getting on her feet and called after the boy. "Hey, you dropped something!" He didn't slow down. "Hey!" He turned the corner, not having heard her, and disappeared from view.

"What's with him?" Dekao asked.

"That's Hikawa-kun from Class B," Meiru informed a confused Netto.

"Hikawa-kun?"

"His dad works at the water plant."

Netto looked at the card she held. "So this is a water plant card key, huh?" She pocketed it. "I'll give it back the next time I see him."

Netto rubs her eyes, yawning tiredly. As always, creating a robot's design was the most tiring part of the entire process. At least with the actual creation, there's a lot more action that could keep her awake. She blinks slowly at the piece of paper on her desk, then stands up, heading downstairs to get a drink of water.

She stops at the sight of Haruka moving the sink handle up and down, and a lack of water that should be coming out of the faucet. "What's wrong, Mama?"

Haruka turns to look at her daughter. "The sink isn't working," she sighs, and Netto notices the pile of dishes that still need to be washed. "I wonder if it's a water outage."

Netto blinks. "Water outage?" Those things should be handled by the water plant. And since she still has the water plant card key, she could go see what was wrong.

'Tomorrow.' Forte speaks up. She looks out the window, and sees that night has fallen.

'Yeah, tomorrow sounds good.'

"Netto, can you go buy some water?" Haruka calls out from the kitchen the next day. School had been canceled since the water outage still hasn't been resolved. No one wanted any students or teachers to collapse from dehydration.

Netto pauses, already in the process of putting on her skates. "Sure!" she calls out. Might as well do some errands before heading to her destination. She steps out of the house, closes the door behind her, and heads toward the nearest general store.

… Which has two lines of people, long lines that stretches back along the street and even further. She can't see the end of it.

"Netto-kun!" Netto hears Meiru's voice, and turns to see her with Dekao.

"Ah, Dekao-kun, Meiru-chan!" she waves.

"Have you come to buy water too?" Meiru asks. Netto nods in response.

"It's no good," Dekao informs her, "With all the people here, they're bound to be sold out."

'If they haven't already sold out.' Forte remarks, and Netto agrees with him.

Suddenly, there was shouting from inside the general store, and the trio peeks through the window to see what's going on. It was Masa, who had gotten there just as all of the water has been sold out. He yells at the employee about what would happen to his fish without the water they need, and storms out. Meiru and Dekao sigh in unison.

Dekao brightens, having thought of an idea. "How about we go see if Yaito-chan has any water?" he asks. Netto and Meiru look at each other, then back at Dekao, and nod. And with that, the plan was changed.

They enter through the front gate after talking with someone who appears to be the butler, and are guided to a room. Yaito is there waiting for them, and the maids set several large containers filled with water on the ground next to them.

Netto looks around, admiring the interior decorating and fountain in the room. "Being rich really has its perks." Grandpa's home was just a bit smaller, but a large number of rooms were used for robotics projects. It was nothing like Yaito's place.

Yaito grins, pleased at the comment. "I guess. Every day we make sure we have a year's supply of water in reserve."

'How do they count that?' Surprisingly, Forte sounds genuinely curious. 'Would it just be the Ayanokouji family, or would it include the servants? If it included the servants, how many are there and how much water would that be?'

'I don't know and I would rather not ask.'

'Spoilsport.'

"That's just like the head of Gabcom!" Dekao picks up one of the containers and lightly shakes it, listening to the sound of the water splashing around inside. "You're really lucky!"

"But isn't it weird?" Meiru points out. "Isn't the water plant there for emergency water shortages?"

"It is." Netto nods, taking out Rockman's PET. "If Rockman had security clearance, he could go take a look."

"I don't." Rockman gives an apologetic shrug.

"But Glyde does." Yaito runs over to Netto, looking up at her. "Want me to have Glyde go there?" she winks.

'… What just happened?'

'You established yourself as the leader figure.'

'O… kay?'

"Glyde has a Level Seven security license, you know," Yaito tells them proudly. They're in the secret base, and the hologram starts up, showing the navi himself.

"Yaito-sama, I've connected to the water plant system," He informs them, "Now attempting to override the firewall."

"Okay!" Yaito chirps, and Glyde's form separates into data as he teleports.

He appears again soon after, and Netto can see ice-covered platforms in the background. "We've got an emergency, Yaito-sama! It's covered in ice!" he shouts. "All of the internal circuits are frozen!" There are sounds of static, but not loud enough to be too distracting.

"Frozen?" Netto murmurs to herself. It's easy to assume that WWW was behind it again, since they were the main reason for almost everything eventful so far.

Glyde screams, drawing Netto's attention to the hologram before the static rose in volume and the image fades. She blinks at the empty space where the hologram was, and wonders if Glyde was frozen just like the water plant system. It would be better than being deleted.

"Glyde!" Yaito calls out in worry. There is no response, nor does the hologram show his location. "Glyde!"

"What happened to Glyde?" Meiru asks, turning to Netto as if she had the answer.

"He probably got discovered by whoever froze the systems," Netto guessed. The security navis should have fixed it, and their absence would mean that whoever is still active in the system would be the culprit. "If we go to the water plant, we could find out."

Yaito turns and sits down on the couch. "Hurry up and sit down, you guys!" She points to the other couch to emphasize her sentence. Pulling out a remote, she presses a few buttons as the other three seat themselves. "Gate Three, open!" She spreads her arms out, allowing the seatbelt that had suddenly appeared to fasten themselves. Her seat then straightens so that it's perpendicular to the floor, and Yaito disappears down a hole.

Seatbelts pop up from between the seats, and Meiru, Dekao, and Netto yell in surprise as the couch jerks and falls down another hole.

'How do they manage this?' Forte wonders, but Netto was too busy keeping a tight hold on her backpack to answer.

The couch slows down its descent and stops, and then moves to the left. It stops again and rises, filling up space in a yellow car.

'That was fun.'

'Of course you'd think that.'

"To the water plant!" Yaito proclaims from behind them.

"Yes, Ojou-sama," the driver answers, pressing a button. They're soon on their way, the scenery whizzing by.

'As soon as we reach the water plant, plug me into the system,' Rockman says, 'I'll try to save Glyde.'

'Got it.' They reach the water plant in a matter of minutes, and has to maneuver through an angry crowd of people inside. The elevator was empty, and they cram inside before someone takes notice. Meiru presses a button, and the elevator starts.

"Are we there yet?" Dekao immediately asks. Yaito shoots him a glare.

"The water reservoir provides clean water to the public," Meiru answers before an argument can start, "that's where we're headed."

Slinging her backpack off her back and setting it to the ground, Netto unzips one of the smaller sections and gently takes out some objects, hiding it from her classmates' views. She holds the hand up to the side of her head, feeling a slight tug as the objects latch tightly onto her hair, hidden.

"What was that?" Meiru asks, watching as Netto zips everything up and slings the backpack to its original position on her back.

"Just some backups in case of complications."

A ding signals them that they were at their floor, and they all stand up. The elevator doors slide open, and everyone gasps in surprise at the security robot that stands in front of them.

'Why is the security robot here of all places?'

'To give trespassers a good scare, I guess.'

'… Sure.'

"What should we do?" Meiru asks, "Will it let us pass?"

Netto looks at the redhead, then back at the security robot, wondering if they were seeing the same thing. The robot's eyes aren't bright, which clearly means that it's off.

'They don't know robots as well as you do,' Forte sighs.

'Oh. Right.'

"Run!" Dekao screams.

Netto rubs at her eyes as the level of panic seems to increase. "No, the water plant's system is offline. That means that the security robot is offline too."

Dekao walked up to the robot and scowls. "Don't scare me like that!" Netto blinks, suddenly remembering another piece of information.

"Oh, yeah. Even if the robot's currently offline, if it receives a strong enough shock—" Dekao takes this time to punch the robot in the head. "—there's a chance that it might…" The robot's yellow eyes starts glowing and an alarm sounds. "… Oh boy." Netto groans.

"Dekao!" Meiru and Yaito scream, glaring at the boy. The security robot starts moving, chasing after the girls, who scream and starts running down a hallway.

'WhatdoIdowhatdoIdo?!" The robot's not really giving her enough time to think of a way to stop it.

'Ah…' Forte had absolutely no idea. Netto has never provoked a robot on purpose, after all. 'Hope it doesn't have weapons?'

'Why would it be a security robot if it doesn't have some kind of weapon!?'

'Hmm…run faster?'

Netto feels herself being lifted up, a metal grip around her midsection. 'A bit late for that!' She shrieks, tugging on the robot's fingers. "Let me go! Let me go!" The robot suddenly stops, and momentum sends Netto flying. She lands on her head and rolls forward a few feet, then stops in front of a door. Grasping her head in pain, she curls up into a ball and groans.

'Owowowowowow…'

'Do you need me to take over?' Forte asks in worry.

'No, I… ow, I don't think I have a concussion, and Meiru-chan might notice like last time. I'll be fine after a moment.'

"Netto-kun!" Meiru rushes up to her. "Are you alright?" In the background, they can hear Dekao praising Gutsman for stopping the robot.

Netto slowly sits up, wiping away any tears that might have escaped her eyes, and smiles shakily. "I don't have a concussion, so I'm fine."

"I think your definition of 'fine' is way different than what the rest of us think is fine," Yaito comments.

Netto laughs a little at that and stands up, using the door to support herself. Noticing a port near it, she takes out Rockman's PET. "You ready?"

Rockman nods, though he looks a bit worried for her health. "Anytime!"

"Plug in, Rockman, transmission!"

The first thing Rockman does when he enters the water plant system is to take a look around at his surroundings. As far as he can see, everything's covered in ice. "This is horrible…" He walks forward, stopping and staring up at one of the largest icicles in the area. He squints at it, to the navi trapped inside. "That's… Glyde! Netto-kun, all of the water plant's circuits are covered in ice! All of the system's programs are frozen!"

"How…" Netto trails off, and then continues, "Be careful; whoever did that might still be in the system."

"Got it." He turns his attention back to the frozen Glyde. "But who could have done this?" A reflection on the icicle catches his attention, and instinct has him jumping up to avoid the incoming attack before he can process it. He lands after a backflip, facing his attacker, a child-sized navi.

"Who are you?" he asks. The attack had been a gust of wind and snow, and he was sure that the child navi was the one who had frozen the system. "And why do something so horrible?"

"Shut up!" the navi shouts, slamming a gloved hand onto the ground. Icicles shoot out, surrounding Rockman and blocking his view of the navi. A few buster shots destroys the ice easily. Looking forward, there is no sign of the navi.

Rockman notices movement from above. Hesnaps his head up, spotting his opponent, who is now equipped with a sword. As the navi utters a battle cry and swings his sword, Rockman goes through and discards several options.

Dodge it; the icicles prevent him from moving far in any direction.

Jump; there is a chance that the sword might hit its mark.

Rockbuster; the navi is small, so there is a chance that he might miss.

That leaves only one other option.

He slaps the palms of his hands on both flat sides of the sword, keeping himself as uninjured as possible while preventing his opponent from attacking further.

'Wha… Rockman, how did you do that?' Netto cuts in at an inconvenient time.

'Spur of the moment…' he shouts, using his strength to throw the navi at an icicle. '… thing!' The navi slumps, dazed, and his sword transforms back into an arm. Rockman heads over to him, placing his hands on his hips. "Now, return everything back to normal! Hurry!"

"Rockman!" a familiar voice drawls out, and he turns to the source. He freezes.

Because Coloredman, a WWW navi, is standing next to the icicle that Glyde was trapped in.

Coloredman smiles when he sees that he has caught Rockman's attention and bows. Straightening up, he points to Glyde. "If you don't behave, I'll delete your friend here." He laughs, and then glares at the child navi. "Iceman."

Iceman stands up and attacks with a gust of snow, and Rockman covers his face as a feeble defense. Ice forms on his legs, rendering him immobile, and slowly crawls up his body.

'Sorry… Netto-kun…' His consciousness slowly faded.

'Rockman, hang in there! Ro... kman! R… k... n…'

Netto gritted her teeth in frustration as Rockman's PET beeped, an error screen showing up as the chip she had slotted in was ejected. She inserted the chip again, only to get the same results.

"No good." She lightly bit her lip. "I can't send any battle chips." And Rockman wasn't responding to her at all.

"Could it be that Rockman was frozen?" Meiru asked. Netto slowly nodded, rubbing at her arm.

"Don't worry, Netto-kun." Dekao grinned. Netto wasn't sure if that was a good thing. The boy held up his PET. "Gutsman, it's our turn!"

"Leave it to me, guts!" He tugged on the PET wire, disconnecting it from the security robot.

'What-'

Netto's eyes widened. "Wait, if you do that, then-"

Alarms began blaring once more and the teenagers could only run away, pursued by the robot yet again.

'Ne… tto… kun…' Said person almost tripped when she heard the voice.

'Rockman! Are you alright?'

'Yes, but… I'm trapped in ice. I can't move.'

'Okay, I'll try to help as soon as I can.' Looking ahead, she saw convenient steel bars propped up against the wall. She gasped. "That's it!" Speeding up, she got behind the bars and gestured at the others. "Hurry up!" As soon as they ran past her, she kicked over the bars. The security robot paused, unable to get across. It began making noises of distress.

"I'm so sorry about this," Netto tried to comfort the robot. She gently took out one of the objects hidden in her hair and threw it. The robot fly buzzed, righting itself thanks to Forte's operating, and flew behind the robot, to where its ports should be.

'… Finished.' Netto grinned at that, moving the bars to the walls. The security robot walked forward, and peered down at her. '…You're bleeding.'

Netto blinked in surprise, and she saw an image for a few seconds, of herself with blood slowly trickling down past her hair. She raised her hand up, brushing against the side of her head and feeling the warmth of the liquid. 'Oh. Must have been from that fall I had earlier.' It must have blended in because of her hair color. 'I don't think it's that bad.'

'You still need to get it treated.'Netto gave a mental agreement, slipping her bandana off and taking out a plastic bag from her backpack. She sat on the floor, carefully using the contents of the bag to wipe away the blood and clean her wound. The other robot fly moved away from her head and settled on her shoulder. As she tied a bandage around her head, making sure it wasn't too tight, she heard the sound of footsteps from behind her.

A sharp gasp. "Netto-kun!"

Netto tugged on the bandage, making sure it was secure, and tossed everything else into a nearby garbage can. She put her bandana back on and turned around. "Ah, Meiru-chan!"

"What happened to you?" Meiru asked, examining the bandage.

Netto laughed. "It's nothing serious." She felt herself being lifted up, and seated on the security robot's back. She pouted. "I'm fine, really!"

'You can't convince me with our link in place.'

'Hey!'

"You have a card key, right?" Yaito spoke up. Netto turned her head to face the blonde, and nodded. "There's a door at the end of this hallway that needs a card key to open. We heard someone in there calling for help."

"Oh, okay." Netto took out the card key and made to jump off when the robot fly that was on her shoulder snatches the card key out of her hands and drops it in Meiru's. She glared at it. "You traitor." Forte decided to start moving the security robot now, while the fly returned to its place on her shoulder.

Meiru unlocked the door and opened it to what seemed to be a storage room with the lights turned off. "Hello?" she called out. There was a silhouette at the other side of the room. "We're here to help. Who are you?"

"I'm Hikawa, a technician," he introduced himself.

"Ah, could you perhaps be Akihara High, Class B's…" she trailed off as the man stepped forward, allowing the teenagers to see the rope binding his arms together.

"I'm Hikawa Tohru's father," he answered.

'Why is he allowed to walk around?'

'Who knows?' She hopped off the robot, and Forte reluctantly forced it to shut down.

"…refused to cooperate with that person," Hikawa was saying, "WWW imprisoned me and took my son hostage. Iceman's operator is none other than Tohru himself."

Ah, that might be why Tohru had the card key.

"Let's hurry and go tell Tohru-kun that his father's safe," Meiru suggested. Hikawa's watch began to beep.

"What is it this time?" Yaito asked.

"The system's been shut down for fifteen hours," Hikawa explained, "if the system remains offline, the bacteria in the purification tank will flow into the city water!"

Netto winced. That pretty much just amounted to poisoning the water. And why was it mostly just Akihara Town that gets attacked?

"Soon, the water in the purifying tank will be released," he continued, "We've got to close off the system before that happens!"

"How do we do that?" Dekao asked.

"I'll do it somehow," he sounded confident. "You guys can lend me a hand!"

"Meiru-chan, Yaito-chan, you guys should go take care of Tohru-kun," Netto suggested, "Dekao-kun and I will go help Hikawa-san."

"But—" Meiru started.

"It's just a minor wound," Netto reassured, "I'll be fine."

'Are you sure?'

'Yes!'

"If you get yourself injured again, I'm going to say 'I told you so,'" Yaito huffed. Netto smiled and nodded. Yaito nodded back, and tugged on Meiru's wrist. "Come on, let's go."

Netto watched as Hikawa hit the chains of a large pipe valve with an iron bar. "What's this?"

"Long ago, this is how we controlled the water flow," he explained, "we can always replace the water main later. If we close the valve, it should put an end to this." He grunted, breaking the chain. Grabbing the edge of the valve, he turned to face them. "Please!"

"Right!" Dekao and Netto walked forward, pulling downward on their side of the valve. It slowly rotated with a horrible squeaking noise that suggests that the valve hadn't been oiled for a long time.

Once they were done, the two teens staggered back, sighing in relief.

"We're not done yet," Hikawa reminded them, "let's keep on going!"

'Netto-kun!' Rockman exclaimed as they continued closing the valves, 'Coloredman's trying to delete Iceman!'

'Shoot, we need to hurry!' They were on the last valve now. '… We made it!' She could hear the water flowing, and shared a grin with Dekao. They looked at Hikawa, who nodded proudly.

"Success!"

'Iceman freed me!' And that was even better.

'I'll be right there!' Dekao on her heels, she raced to the control room, slamming open the door and connecting Rockman's PET to the system. She pulled out a battle chip from her pocket and briefly glanced at it. "Battle chip, Shotgun, slot in!"

She watched as Rockman got rid of Coloredman's pink-haired clones. 'Netto-kun!'

"Let's go, Rockman! Battle chip, Elec Sword, slot in!" As the sword formed on Rockman's arm, he lunged forward, cutting into the ball Coloredman always sat on and forcing him to log out.

The blue navi ran to Iceman's side, and Netto was able to take a good look at him. "Iceman, are you alright?"

"Rockman…" he said weakly, and smiled as he logged out as well.

The door slid open, and Hikawa stepped in. "Tohru!"

Tohru looked up, surprised. Meiru took this time to guide the others out the room. "They need some privacy," she explained when Netto asked.

While they stood outside the control room, Netto fidgeted. 'What kind of present should I get for Grandpa?'

Forte hummed in thought. 'The usual?'

'I want to find something better than that, though…'

'Come to think of it, the old man mentioned that he was running out of Sharoian metal in one of his emails.'

'Then that's what we'll get for him!'

The door slid open again, with Tohru and his father coming out. Tohru looked at the group, then down at the floor in guilt. "I'm sorry, everyone. Because of me…"

"No need to worry," Meiru interrupted. She glanced at Netto.

Netto blinked in confusion, then realized what Meiru wanted her to say, being Rockman's operator and all. "Yeah, it's fine. We understand your reasons."

"Mmhmm." Yaito nodded, "It's all because of WWW, so it's their fault."

"Well, thanks to me, we were able to save the day in time!" Dekao bragged.

Yaito slapped him on the shoulder. "Liar!"

"Right?" Netto smiled, ignoring the scene that was occurring behind her.

Tohru raised his head and he relaxed, relieved. "Everyone…"

In the cyber world, a similar scene was happening.

"Let's be friends from now on," Rockman said, "pleased to meet you, Iceman."

They shook hands. "Thank you, Rockman," Iceman smiled, "Thank you, everyone."

"I have to say…" Netto cut in, unaware of the current mood, "… Iceman's a really cute navi." Iceman's jaw dropped and he blushed at the compliment. "I think he's as cute as Roll-chan!"

Roll covered her red face with her hands. "Netto-kun, you're embarrassing me!"

"But it's true!"

Whoo, look at that nightmare scene I managed to do. Rockman and Forte were in sleep mode, so the nightmare caused them to wake up.

Really, Rockman's plan to stop Iceman's sword attack was pretty reckless. Please don't try this at all.

Netto tends to get herself into a lot of trouble, so first-aid kit is a necessity when traveling. She's lucky that a bloody scrape's all she got.

It's sad that all that technology caused people to forget to maintain their equipment. Seriously, the valves looked really rusty and the noise it made when it was turning helps to prove that maintenance is a must.