Net Navi

Disclaimer: I do not own the anime series Rockman.EXE, Rockman.EXE Axess, or Rockman.EXE Stream (or any variation of the "Megaman NT Warrior" series, or "Battle Network" games). If I did, I would have used the money made off it all to invent the PET technology, and had Rockman all to myself. ^.^ As you might know, Rockman (or Megaman) is originally property of Capcom Inc., and the anime series (on which I'm basing this fic) is the intellectual property of Shogakukan.

Net Navi
Chapter 4 - Queen's Gambit

Oh, sons of Earth! attempt ye still to rise. By mountains pil'd on mountains to the skies? Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
- Alexander Pope, Essay on Man (ep. IV, l. 74)

In a commuter hotel in the depths of the Den Net, in one of the districts rumored to have an entry point to the infamous UnderNet, in the kind of hotel that consequently "forgot" the security measure of taking their clients' ID at check-in and check-out, in one of the cheapest rooms available lay a Navi sprawled motionless on its back on a dingy bed, the kind you could put a Zenny on to make it vibrate. It was dressed in an orange and blue exodermal suit, a piece of cybernetic headgear of some sort unlike the helmets of most of its kind around its head. Alone in the suite, it looked rather vulnerable and out of place, a hundred different stories as to how it came to be there implicit in the setting.

Stirring softly, a small and quite human noise escaping its slightly parted delicate lips, its eyes cracked open slightly, though not quite so much as to give clear indication to what eye color it had, but enough to say it was no more than half-awake. Following suit, its body making a series of small efforts to shift its position, the figure pivoted for a prolonged split-second, before slumping unceremoniously onto its side, lying like a cat does that is basking in the sun.

However, as the navi, clearly male through the skin-tight suit not so much by the prominence of male physiology as the lack of such female characteristics, seemed to have reached a state of sleep once more, without any clear indication as to how it came about, he awoke. Opening his eyes slowly, revealing them to be sky blue of a darkly cerulean hue, the navi blinked a couple of times, before steadying his gaze, his sight tracing invisible paths around the part of the room revealed to him by his current position. From the blankly look in his eyes, what he was seeing did not make much sense to him.

After some more time had passed in this fashion, his mind seemed to suddenly couple a number of pieces of information together, and he hoisted himself up from his position of laying on his side, swinging his legs down from under him onto the floor so he could sit at the edge of the bed, enabling him to take in the whole room he was in, this whole maneuver executed with considerable grace and guile.

Turning his head from side to side, seemingly no more enlightened by what he was seeing now than what he had seen half a minute before, he slid off the bed with the same deft city-animal fluid grace aforementioned, then coming to a halt as his eyes widened, looking down his slender frame as though he had only just become aware of it.

He stood like this for some time, perhaps a minute, lifting his hands, lowering them, turning his body this way and that, moving his head and taking a few steps out into the room to take in his appearance as best he could without a mirror, this not being the type of establishment to accommodate such vanity, or such high expectations. All the while, blood, or a computer simulation of it, was flushing his face rather steadily, the object of his inspection seemingly embarrassing him.

Tentatively, he returned to the bed and sat down on the edge, feeling the springs, having been too preoccupied before to have any recollection of what shape they were in, and also having no recollection of having entered the rather sordid establishment on which to base judgment.

Finding the springs to be in satisfactory condition, though by no great margin, he made a miniscule jump, landing on his back further into the bed, his feet still on the floor in front of the piece of furniture, his arms spread to either side of his well-defined torso, a look of bewilderment starting to take over his clean, boyish features as he lay there, staring into the roof, just starting to take in the beginning hustle and bustle from the streets outside.

“Rockman...where am I...where are you...?”

- - -

“Why do these things always happen to us...?”

Seated uncharacteristically in a hoverbus going out to the Den City Airport, Ijuuin Enzan cursed the world, the lack of proper servants when they were needed, an oncoming headache of the gnawing kind, the kind that yielded to no medication or treatment, and a tight knot that was forming in his stomach, composed from being annoyed, angry and worried sick.

Some fifteen minutes earlier, he had left the Hikari residence, feeling he had handled his new situation rather poorly, both due to a lack of information and because he did not feel...comfortable...having to deal with the entirely unexpected. In fact, he had been struggling with something of the same situation when he had gone out this morning to get Netto for their Net Savior mission to Electopia.

Considering the somewhat delicate nature of their mission, he had been giving it some thought how best to handle the situation that had arisen, specifically if Netto could be counted on to act rationally, and if he could even be declared fit for duty, as he was after all the vanished professor’s son. Of course, Enzan thought, one could argue that getting Hikari Netto to act rationally was in itself a futile task. He was just too damn caring about everyone for his own good, always ready to see a silver lining in every cloud, no matter how black and thunderous.

Sitting in the car, seeing the Den Airport appearing far off on the horizon, he remembered thinking of his probably best friend's unruliness and nearly dog-like affection towards the people he knew had made him smile fondly just before he had yet composed himself in his most business-like manner and rung the doorbell to the Hikari house.

What had been transpired during the next three minutes had shaken him badly, leading in its fullness to his current predicament, headache, stomach knot and all. Hikari Haruka, Netto's mother, had answered the door, quite upset at having arrived home a few minutes prior to find her son missing, and his PET likewise missing from its charging point by the computer in his room. This was no unusual situation; Netto might have been somehow occupied on his way home from school or dashed out of the short shortly after his return, but Haruka had been quite adamant he had forgotten his PET when going off to school in the morning, and as far as she had been able to discover, Netto had left none of the usual telltale signs of his return.

Knowing the...special...relationship Netto and Rockman had, Enzan found it quite improbable that his friend would ever willingly go anywhere without his IPC brand deep blue custom built PET, and even more unlikely he would not return in a big hurry to reclaim it whenever he could get away, unless... Voicing a rapidly rising suspicion without any of the consideration pertinent to such an inquiry, Enzan had asked Haruka whether Netto might have been kidnapped like Professor Hikari Yuuichirou had been. Haruka, just home from her daily chores and knowing nothing of the situation in Electopia with her husband in the middle, had nearly dissolved entirely.

She was in such a state of distress, in fact, that Enzan had to call someone from the Net Police to come over and keep her company and fill her in on the situation, perhaps even calm her a little, as he was already running late for his flight to Electopia. Besides, he himself would most likely not have been of much help to her in the first place, as he was probably one of the least apt “people-persons” in Netopia. Although, he could probably have empathized more with Haruka than any other person, as her agony was very close to his own...however, unlike dealing with other people’s emotions, he was quite skilled at subduing his own.

As the hoverbus came to a stop outside the Den Airport, his worried musings were stirred, and he looked up at the air traffic tower for a couple of seconds before he remembered where he was, and more importantly why he had come. Exiting the hoverbus hurriedly, he paced off towards the airport, itching to get off to Electopia, hoping the investigation into Professor Hikari's disappearance would help to shed some light on Netto's predicament, whatever that might be.

- - -

Pitch black. This was the only fitting description Hikari Yuuichirou could think of to match his whereabouts. The blindfold around his eyes might be obscuring his perception somehow, but he remained fairly convinced his initial gut feeling of being somewhere devoid of any light source was correct. His attempt at calling out to anyone who could hear him, back when he had just woken up from his involuntary nap, had also betrayed to the Professor’s keen senses he was somewhere constrained, a small room of some sort, five meters across at most, and that the walls were hard, likely concrete or something similar.

His feet were tied, and so were his hands, behind his back, and he was sitting on a chair. From what concepts he could still gather to him concerning the passage of time, he had awoken in this dark room some ten minutes prior, and he had heard no sound other than his breathing and the steady rhythm of his heart.

He had been kidnapped. Taken from a busy thoroughfare in the capital city of Ameropa, knocked down on the street and spirited away to who-knew-where. It was because of his work, naturally; If it was not, why him? He was no-one in particular to the casual observer, though nearly every person in the world used his technology to communicate and co-exist. And besides, if it was just casual crime, why had he been allowed to wake on his own volition? No, it had to be about his research into the new Synchro Chip, and this crime had to have been orchestrated by one of the dominant crime organizations of the Network Society Underground.

However, there were several oddities that would have him doubt his assessment of the situation. The WWW, for instance, often laid brilliant plant, but were invariably clumsy in their execution. Gospel was far-reaching, ambitious and efficient, but they executed their schemes with considerable brutality and ruthlessness. If they had been the perpetrators, his wakeup call would have been a fist in the face, not waking up in peace and quiet, though bound. And Nebula...well, they would consider it beneath them to extend beyond the Network into the real world in any way, and would not have perpetrated something as crude as an abduction.

So, ruling out these three major and persistent proponents of cyber crime, it would mean someone else was on the move...someone well connected enough to know of his whereabouts and what he was working on, that was part of neither group...a rogue operative? Or worse, someone not connected to them in any way...?

Hearing someone unlocking the door to the room he was in, the professor raised his head to find a dim light flowing in on his face, and he opened his eyes halfway under the blindfold, in the faint hope the blindfold would be not entirely opaque. As he found it blocked all sight quite effectively, he nonetheless kept his head raised the better to keep up with the sound of footsteps entering the room, belonging to a couple of people by the sound of it.

“Where am I? Who are you, and who are you working for? Why am I here?” Yuuichirou asked, only to receive an indifferent “Get up” as he felt the rope tying his hands together being cut. Standing up tentatively, he started slightly as the restraints keeping his legs together were cut also, enabling him near freedom of movement. Before he could think of using it for anything remotely rebellious, however, rough henchmen hands grabbed his wrists, dragging him out of the room and into someplace outside, bathed in dim light.

The first thing that tugged at the professor’s alert mind was a slight tingling sensation, of the kind human skin would experience in proximity to a strong electromagnetic field, and he knew this particular itch quite well. He was inside a Dimensional Area, and one modulated to a high enough power output to accommodate several Navis at once. Walking a short distance, some hundred meters or so, the men dragging Yuuichirou along came to a halt, and the professor was given a push to the small of his back, landing on his knees on the ground.

“Well well, this is a surprise, albeit quite a pleasant one. It was somewhat of an ordeal to request your company for this little get-together, but I’m ever so glad to see you could make it, Yuu-kun.”

Ready to respond the pleasure had to be all on the side of the speaker, all of Yuuichirou’s being came to a dead halt as he heard the familiar nickname, and it took most of his willpower to avoid his professional, detached self from unraveling. He managed, however, though his voice betrayed both surprise and disbelief:

“Yuu-kun...there have only been two people in my entire life who have called me that...” he said, regaining some control over his voice: “...and though your voice reminds me of both, neither of them are alive anymore.”

The unknown speaker was silent for a couple of seconds, before he spoke, a smile evident in his words:

“One of them, indeed. The other...well, let’s just say, it is surprisingly easy to be not quite dead when you’ve only ever been not quite alive.”

Yuuichirou could feel a cold shiver run down his spine, both at the words and their myriad implicit accusations and revelations, and he half-whispered to the figure whose identity was now apparent to him, the only words to be found inside him at that moment:

“...but then, why...?”

- - -

It was somewhat alien, yet strangely compelling, Netto thought to himself as he exited the commuter hotel and walked onto the streets of Net City, how the Network and its myriad AI islands of consciousness, sought so closely to imitate the world outside. This drive for mimicking was more than likely embedded in them by the original Network Code to better facilitate understanding of their operator’s physical reality, and probably also to not burden the operator’s mind with thinking in terms of a computer when communicating with his navi. Thus probably also the mostly humanoid navi frames...

Feeling perplexed still, Netto had nonetheless begun to come to terms with what had happened, and what it meant. Earlier that day (or yesterday; time acted differently in the mind of a navi than in a human) Netto had come home from school to find an envelope, with a letter from his father and a chip that he had concluded probably was the new prototype Cross Fusion chip. Of course, he had wanted to test this electronic wonder as soon as he could, and he had.

From there, and finding out it was probably not the new Cross Fusion chip, things had gone downhill. Through panic, confusion, pain, and unconsciousness, he had ventured first into his PET, and when the device was running out of power he and Rockman had devised a daring and desperate plan to escape onto the Network, which they had. And now, he was walking down the street in Net City, in the frame of a navi, and things were finally beginning to slide into focus.

For some time since his awakening in the hotel room, he had pondered whether him being somehow converted into a navi had been the result of a malfunction on the part of the chip, only to scrap the idea in the end, on account of the “glitch” seeming too cleanly executed. The chip had worked just fine, for its intended purpose. Thinking of it, Netto had not been this vulnerable to attack since the day before Rockman had entered his life, and Rockman too had been rendered much more vulnerable without battle chips and an operator.

It was more than likely that one of the great Net Crime syndicates was behind what had happened, and as far as he could think, it could be any one of them. Or it could be something new, something neither the Net Police nor the Net Saviors knew of. The regular syndicates was bad enough, yet the idea of someone who could convert matter from the material world and reassemble it in the Network was, in Netto’s opinion, news worthy of a truly horrible day.

Getting more used to navi existence with every step, Netto felt more graceful in his aimless reverie than he had stumbling out of the hotel room. His head was also clearing, now that he had gotten a sequential fix on the different stages of this occurrence, and there was something else also...he had felt it before, when waking up again after his headache in the initial moments of his navi existence, the sense that his whole being was slowly turning...mathematical. He was structuring information halfway down in his subconscious, formatting, defragmenting, juggling pieces of info here and there...like a computer.

Lost in the minute wonders of his new sense of being, Netto stopped suddenly to look around, finding himself in a city square, corporate offices and interests stationed through buildings all around. There were offices, there were shops, and there were navis. Hundreds, by the look of it; unwittingly, he had walked more or less into their midst, engrossed now in the flurry of AI projections surrounding him. There was love and hate, there was discord, there was harmony, and he could feel it all, like a giant yin-yang pictogram unfurling inside him.

There was probably some command in the Network Code to generate this balance in its inhabitants, but most likely on a subconscious level; if navis went around feeling as Netto did right now, he imagined it would be highly distracting. All he could infer was that since he was essentially an outsider, a stranger to this program, some of the restrictions placed on his fellow inhabitants designed to function within the program did not apply to him.

Feeling as though he was looking at a glass of water about to overflow, but held perfectly in place by the force of molecular bonding, the liquid contained in a gravity-defying dome just above the rim, he suddenly caught sight of a particular navi. It was only for a second, and only a glimpse, but in that one instant the glass flowed over, and the balance was broken.

Before the feeling could really take hold, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned abruptly, coming face to face with Rockman: “Oh...Rockman...” Netto said, bewildered as his eyes came level with those of the other navi. Remembering the sensation from seconds before, he turned again to the place the disconcerting consciousness had been. Nothing there. Navis to be sure, as the surrounding crowd had in no way dissipated, but not the disconcerting presence from before. The navi that was not in balance with the rest of the network...

“Netto-kun, what are you doing out here? I thought I told you to stay in the hotel when I left.” Rockman said, calling Netto’s attention back to his friend, and he turned to face him: “I don’t recall.” he said, trying to look innocent. True enough, he didn’t remember Rockman telling him to stay put; in fact, he couldn’t remember anything since they had arrived in Net City. However, it wasn’t too far a leap for the mind to imagine he should have stayed in the hotel, since their abduction from the material world seemed strongly to have hostile intent behind it.

“Well, ok. These have been a stressful couple of days, especially I might imagine, on your mind and body...” Rockman said, giving Netto a quirk-eyed look over: “Really, looking at you is like looking at myself in the mirror. Well, almost...different colors, different headgear...different eye colors...and last, but not least...” he said, putting his hand on Netto’s head: “...I’m taller than you.” he said with a grin.

Netto blinked a couple of times, at the notion of being dragged into something to trivial as this following something as extraordinary as he had been through in the last day, but as he shifted his eyes to look at Rockman’s arm, it felt somewhat...relieving, that they could still be who they had been before all of this had happened. So, flushing with indignation, Netto looked at the other navi, gauging his height: “Maybe, by one or two centimeters...but watch yourself, such things can be reprogrammed...” he said defiantly, yet his voice making clear he meant to do no such thing.

Besides, even if he had wanted to, he was powerless to manipulate that kind of data in any way now. Rockman, picking up on his joke, feigned a shocked look: “Hikari Netto, you wouldn’t...” he said, backing off slightly, removing his hand from Netto’s head. As he felt the touch cease, his tactile senses missed it almost immediately. This new existence was indeed filled with wonders, far from the least of them being able be with his friend and navi in the same physical space. However, this also opened up some disturbing new possibilities.

If the feelings Netto had been experiencing lately was indeed what he thought they were, then the one good reason not to do anything about them had just been thrown out the window in one grand stroke. After all, the unwritten rule that having feelings for your navi was a bad idea only applied if the two parts of the dilemma occupied incompatible realities. But even with this most prominent obstacle overcome, and being able to trust that what he felt was actually what he thought it was, Netto was not certain it would be a good idea to act upon those feelings...

“Net City calling planet Netto. Any signs of intelligent life?”

Feeling as if he’d been caught doing something shameful, Netto started and looked into Rockman’s eyes, losing himself in those emerald wonders for a short second before the meaning of what the other navi had just said entered his mind. Acting his usual mature self, Netto crossed his arms and stuck out his tongue at Rockman. The other navi just smiled in a superior fashion, before his expression became serious: “Anyways, what were you looking at before, in the other direction?” Remembering the sensation from before, Netto shrugged: “Just some strange navi. Something about it was slightly disturbing, but it can’t have been very serious, as I seem to have already forgotten what it looked like. Just like one of those overly ordinary people in the other world, one of those that you forget as soon as you look away...” he said.

Seeing as how Rockman was about to pursue the matter, Netto retorted: “But forget that. We have more important things to worry about than strange navis, don’t we? What do we do now, for instance?” he asked. Rockman thought for a couple of seconds, seemingly thinking whether to drop the matter with the other navi, before he spoke: “Yes, we have more pressing concerns. And, I have decided our goal of right now should be the Ameropa Science Directory, to try to speak to papa. He might know more about what has happened to you, and might even have a way of returning you to normal. And even if he doesn’t, he’ll be able to protect you until such time as he can find a way to rematerialize you.”

Thinking what Rockman had said over for a couple of seconds, Netto nodded: “Sounds like a plan. And regardless, we might be able to find something to turn the tables on whoever stranded me here, if it was the result of criminal intent. As powerless as we are now, we are little more than sitting ducks. Let’s move out.”

- - -

In an alley nearby, a cloaked figure watched the Hikari brothers depart the commercial square, seemingly quite unfazed by a navi squirming in his hand as the unknown held it by its throat against the alleyway wall. As Netto and Rockman disappeared on the other side of the crowd, the hand of the unknown hanging by its side changed suddenly into a cyber sword, which the cloaked navi promptly thrust through the other navis heart. Its eyes widening for a second or two uncomprehending of the situation, it fell limp to the ground as the unknown retracted his sword and relinquished his grip.

“Not quite there yet, are we?” said a female voice, followed in sequence by a female-looking navi appearing from nowhere behind the unknown, smiling viciously yet sweetly: “Haven’t you been telling our master the Reformation Project is on schedule? I’ve even backed you...” she said, a threat apparent in her voice, though otherwise flawlessly modulated and executed.

The other seemed unfazed still, though he did not release the cyber sword: “I will finish the project in the time allotted by our leader, to conform to his plans. There is no need for you to concern yourself with my work, Valkyrie.” it said in a flat voice, making apparent it was a male type navi, with a voice just as flawlessly modulated as the female, Valkyrie’s. At this response, she quirked her eyes in seeming disbelief, before smiling even broader

“You truly need to start respecting your elders, Ace, or one of us will have your head someday, regardless of how ‘unique’ your gifts are...” she said, eyeing the male navi, Ace, carefully once more before turning on her heels and starting to walk away. Coming to a halt, she spoke without looking at the supposedly younger navi: “Oh, and clean up your mess. Only careless youngsters leave evidence for the Net Police to find, even in this part of town...” she said, starting to walk before plugging out from this part of the Network, disappearing in a torrent of bits.

- - -

“I can’t believe we have this...do you know what some collectors would give for this? I mean...it’s that Rockman’s PET...”

Sitting in a large decrepit hall formerly an airplane hangar, the two men who had earlier executed “the human element of phase one”, sat by a rickety table on a couple of makeshift chairs, apparently passing time with cards and drink. The shorter man was keeping Netto’s PET on the table in front of him, his eyes sliding from the card to the device quite frequently, greed apparent in his entire being.

The other man sighed: “For not even having a PET of your own, you sure seem to know a lot about those who do.” he said, pouring himself another glass from a bottle also on the table, and drinking it down in one gulp.

“Well, of course I’d know this PET. I was a spectator at the N1 Grand Prix, when this thing’s former owner very nearly wiped the floor with the son of the IPC CEO in a Net Battle. Don’t you watch Net Battles on the Television Network?” he asked the other, playing a card into an already lumbering heap on the middle of the table.

“No, not really. It doesn’t really interest me much.” the other replied, throwing down the cards on his hand in a sign of defeat: “And regardless, our employer will be expecting this when she arrives. And yes...” he said, when the short one seemed about to speak: “...they would know the difference if we decided to swap it or do something else. We are being duly compensated; there is nothing to be gained from such risk.” he said, gathering up the cards to shuffle them.

“No, there is most certainly not.” a cold voice issued from behind them, causing them both to start and stand up to face the newcomer. It was the navi Valkyrie, standing tall at a height approximately midway between the short and the tall man, clad in a black exodermal bodysuit with white and purple fields, and sporting back-length silken white hair, a pair of wholly inhuman looking eyes with radiant red irises locked on the short man with the PET.

“M-mistress Valkyrie, we’ve been...ehrm, waiting...” said the tall man, snatching the blue PET and holding it out to the intimidating presence: “Allow me to present, the fruit of our mission...”

Sustaining an eerie smile, Valkyrie stepped over and took the PET from the tall man, inspecting it and seemingly finding everything in order. That was, until her eyes came to rest upon the chip slot, which was empty. Looking the two men over, the mood of the exchange fluctuating slightly, he asked: “There was supposed to be a chip in this PET. Where is it?” she inquired of the tall man, something indefinable at the tip of her very being.

“Chip? We found no chip, neither in the PET nor in the room where we found the device.” he said, feeling almost as if he had had all the air hit out of him by a martial arts master. Her face turning oddly blank for a couple of seconds, she regained her composure and took a step back turning around to leave, at which the short man let out a highly audible sigh of relief.

“Err...Mistress Valkyrie, our payment...” said the tall man, halting the navi in mid-step: “Payment...?” she said, her voice cold and sharp as a steel blade, and the tall man swallowed a rather pressing lump from his throat and continued, with dwindling momentum: “Yes, well...we were promised substantial compensation for this job you wished us to do, and...well...we’ve not...actually...received anything yet...” he said, his voice trailing off as the red-eyed navi turned around very slowly, locking eyes with the man who was speaking.

“Ah, yes...your ‘compensation’...” she said, her smile suddenly reappeared, as if her expressions were nothing more than masks to hide the true face within: “Well, I was planning on letting you both leave this place unharmed...that was, until you decided to go and screw up, in the usual human fashion” she said, before suddenly flourishing her hand, energy of some sort escaping it in the direction of the short man. The tall man hardly had time to register what was happening before he heard a grunt behind him, simultaneous with a sickening organic sound, the like of which he had never heard.

As he turned around in fright, he was met with a sight that did not even leave him the option of feeling nauseous for the terror he felt, following that he could not characterize the bloody mess strewn over the wall as anything remotely human.

“I suggest...” Valkyrie said, leaning over the tall man’s shoulder so that her face was next to his: “...that you run, while you still have legs to carry you, not to mention something even faintly reminiscent of the sloshy frame you call a body...” she said, her voice dripping with sadistic pleasure.

The scene was still for some ten seconds, the tall man frozen in shock and Valkyrie admiring her handiwork, before she apparently decided enough was enough, and grabbed hold of the man’s neck: “Or, on second thought, I never really liked humans too much to begin with...” she said, a smile entirely unlike the one of her mask face creeping onto her lips as she unleashed another wave of energy from the hand around the human’s neck.

- - -

Hikari Yuuichirou was missing, Netto was missing along with his PET, and now a report had just come in that a mysterious chip had been found in Hikari Netto’s room, partially hidden underneath a pair of dirty socks. It was hard to piece together anything concrete, but to Enzan it tasted like crime. So far the Network specialists connected to the Net Police had been able to learn nothing about the chip, and Enzan cursed the fact that the first and foremost specialist on these matters had also decided to go missing.

He had a certain...fondness, for Netto. Not of the “love” kind, at any rate not any more. He might have thought his feelings were of such a magnitude when he first became friends with the hyper-energetic boy, of a lack of earlier friendships to measure this one against, but that was quite some time ago, four or five year if his memory served him correctly.

But even if he was no longer in love with Netto, he considered him his best friend from behind a mask of indifference, and felt a strong bond with that crazy guy who seemed perpetually willing to sacrifice himself for others, and ever ready to do what was right...and now, he too would throw himself entirely into this search, to help Netto in any way he was able.

“Enzan-sama, we will be arriving in Ameropa in three hours.” a voice issued from the PET unit in his belt, and he picked it up, looking into the view screen at his navi companion, Blues: “Is everything taken care of for our arrival?” Enzan asked, and Blues merely nodded. “Good.” Enzan said, and then, uncharacteristically: “How are you holding up, Rockman having disappeared and all? You guys seem to have grown pretty close over the years...” he said, and Blues did not seem to disagree in any physical manner, though he looked slightly indignated: “I beg to differ, Enzan-sama. I meet him on a regular basis, but it is usually in an arena, where he and I fight in elaborate cyber battles to please and entertain you and Netto-kun.” he said, clearly not speaking his mind to a full extent.

“I suppose that is true...” Enzan said, putting the PET on the tray table in front of him, propped up against the seat in front.

“Regardless...” there came from the PET some ten minutes later: “I am pleased to be able to offer assistance in any way I can, to any of my...acquaintances.” Blues offered, and Enzan nodded, before he turned his attention out the window, smiling. Enzan was much like himself. This was probably the reason they understood one another to such an extent as they did. He did not know where he would have been now if Blues had not been a part of his life for the last eight years.

Looking out of the airplane window, seeing the pearly clouds glide by far underneath like distance pieces of peace, he begun preparing his mind for the trouble that seemed to be all around so dead ahead.

~fin~

- - -

Good day, people, and welcome to the (extended) afterword.

It would seem I have returned to this story with a vengeance, and I hope you enjoyed this newest installment in the (ongoing) series. It’s starting to pick up again, and hopefully I’ll be able to keep the drive up for a while, and also realize fully what potential I believe this story to have, in its own little universe.

There is not very much to say in this segment, except finally write an explanation to the somewhat artful pun present in the title of this series, Net Navi. This is true, though you would have to know basic Japanese linguistic mechanics to pick up on it, plus be pretty damn perceptive to couple it together.

So, for some time now I’ve been thinking of writing an explanation of this pun, and here it is. I will try to explain this in a sufficiently eloquent way so that everyone can understand it. If your computer can’t see Japanese writing, make it. Or else, I will try to caption the text in a somewhat understandable way. Well, here goes.

Japanese language is written with three types of script: hiragana, the traditional script, used by children and for modulating words in grammatical order in sentences; katakana, the newer script, mainly used for transliterating foreign (read: English) words to Japanese; and Kanji, a set of about two and a half thousand imported and slightly converted Chinese pictograms, used in Japanese to express distinct ideas and concepts, like car, hospital, sun, warm, spiky, etc.

The two genuinely Japanese scripts, hiragana and katakana, are phonetic in nature, each letter expressing a sound as opposed to the polysynthetic combination of letters in writing in the Latin script, that is this one. With the exception of three sounds (shi, chi and tsu), all sounds in Japanese are made up from combining on consonant and one vowel, for example ka, ho, mi, ne.

There are around 45 letters in the Japanese alphabet, the hiragana and katakana alphabets realize the same sounds, though they make it look different.

Using the three types of script, we can thus realize the Japanese sound “to” in three different ways.

と in hiragana
ト in katakana
斗 in Kanji

Now, to the pun. In the Rockman.EXE series, the protagonists utilize Net Navis. Keep in mind what I said about each Japanese sound being a consonant and a vowel put together, these constructions appearing in sequence one after another to form words. Thus, transliterating it into katakana, Net Navi becomes:

ネットナビ
”netto-nabi”

If you are with me still, I have been doing an acceptable job in explaining this. Moving on, as you might have see there is a certain resemblance between the transliterated “Net” and the name of our adorable protagonist, Hikari Netto. Coincidence? Nay, says I.

Since names in Japanese, like names in a number of other languages are made up of characteristics and concrete ideas from the vocabulary of the language, backtrack to my explanation on the usage of Kanji. Yep, you guessed right, Japanese names are written in Kanji. Most of them, that is. However, the official writing of Netto’s name is this:

熱斗
Netto

(Fun fact: The first kanji in Netto’s name translates into either “heat” or “enthusiasm”, the second is the descriptor for an old Japanese system of volume measurement (one “to” is about 18 litres, by the way). Who knows what these people are trying to tell us...)

Now, moving towards the end. I got the idea for the main points of this story thinking over this dichotomy of the scripts, and having given the explanation of this phenomenon as well as I can, I give you now the actual title of this story, in Japanese, with the pun intact.

熱斗ナビ
Netto-nabi

Name of the boy, then the title navi. Denoting Netto as a navi. Read the same, phonetically, written differently, and meaning something quite different.

For those of you who got it, clap clap for you. (Whoever said fanfiction was nothing but idle fancies, eh?) For those who didn’t...well, it probably wasn’t that clever anyways.

One clarification in regards to the story: this is set around the time Netto and Co. are 14 or 15 years old. The Rockman.exe timeline has always seemed a bit mystifying to me, but as far as I have been able to deduce Netto was 11 or 12 years old in the first anime series, and 15 or 16 in Beast, so this is sometime wedged in between the Axess and Stream series. Just informing

In response to the reviewer who called to mind the discrepancy in this story concerning what relationship is canonically right between Netto and Rockman, I say indeed. In the anime series, there is no relation between them, other than friendship and an operator/navi bond. However, as you point out, in the games Rockman is an AI computer simulation based upon the genetic profile of Hikari Saito, Netto’s older brother, who presumably died of a disease sometime when Netto was very young. So, in a sense, Rockman walks like Saito, talks like Saito, and probably also thinks like Saito, but does that really make him the person who was Netto’s brother in life? Now I also stand responsible for quasi-philosophical fanfiction. Hmm...

What I can say as for why I decided to include the take on Rockman present in the game series is I tried to achieve a certain degree of holism, and integration. The universes portrayed in the games and anime series are alike in nearly every other aspect, and as such I felt it would be for the best to join them in those areas that are not the same, and try to complete the universe to as fully a degree as I can. I would welcome any feedback on this grip.

In fact, I would welcome feedback on nearly anything; please leave a word or two if you felt it was worth it. I write this stuff to be read, mainly (oh, and I also get off slightly on reviews.) In that regard, let me take up some more space to acknowledge some of the very nice and feel-good reviews I got after the earlier chapters, and in particular the one complimenting my tech-acumen and detailed description work. Thank you so much, all of you are too kind. It's a pleasure to be supplying your entertainment.

Oh well, until next time