Super-duper-uber extra long chapter, this one. I hope you'll… well, like it? If you need me, I'll be huddled in the anti-atomic shield. *flees the scene*

Title: "Infecten – stage 5 – Maturation 4/?"

Author: Nemesi.

Fandom: (MMBN)

Genre: Romance. Humour. THIS CHAPTER ALSO CONTAINS: angst, and a battle scene.

Word Count:3433.

Characters/Pairings: Blues/Rockman; Netto, Enzan, Axl mainly. Others mentioned.

Rating: PG-13.

Disclaimer: , its characters, places and themes belong to Capcom, Shogakukan, ShoPro, TV Tokio, etc.. No copyright infringement is intended.

Warnings: Shounen-ai. Un-betaed. Navi-preg (and I claim ownership on this idea). OC.

A/N: In this stage, the disease fully develops into a chronic condition.

Summary: And suddenly, all was not well anymore.

In the main hall of the IPC's building, right behind the huge glass doors, a mahogany desk stretched luxuriously across the green carpet. Four girls in wine-red suits stood guard behind its bulk, and from them visitors could acquire a pass, book an appointment with this or that Important Person or receive a glossy brochure declaiming the greatness of the Ijuin empire.

The girls were aided in their job by a PC; a small model, slim and extremely fancy on the outside, but efficient like little else. Within the PC was a digital waiting area, where Navis could file up to book an appointment, or just soak up info on the famous company and its high-tech wonder of a building.

When Roll pixelated into the area, she'd resigned herself to be met professionally (read: glacially) by one of the Net-guides, as it always happened. She hadn't expected to be greeted by a fangirlish squeal, and assaulted by a cat-eared blur travelling at the speed of light.

"Roll-Oneesan!"

Roll had just enough time to bend her legs a little – like a baseball catcher – and opened her arms, 'oofing' slightly when Axl barrelled into them full-speed.

"Roll-Oneesan!" the child chirped again, bouncing up and down like a yo-yo (but sans the string, obviously).

"Hey there, little guy. What's got you so excited?"

"He's had his first training session today," Rockman explained, walking up to them with a smirk.

Roll, who'd been well-aware of it all along, and actually came to collect Axl at IPC only just to know how it went, made her eyes and mouth go wide and round.

"Did you?" she asked the still-bouncing child. "And how did it go?"

Rockman cleared his throat in a way that seemed meant to hide a laugh, but Axl brightened like a 1000Whatt light bulb.

"Famously, Roll-Oneesan! You should've seen me! I beat aaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllll the evil viruses!"

Roll blinked up at Rockman, looking for an explanation. She highly doubted that Axl could've beat any virus, even in a simulated battle. Rockman mouthed: 'outran them' and pressed his lips to try and contain another laugh. Roll pictured Axl running in panicked circles across the Battle Arena, small legs pumping and arms flailing wildly, and fought down a giggle herself.

"Well then, I think my little warrior deserves a treat for doing so well." She tapped his nose. "What would you like, mh?"

Axl's eyes grew huge at that. And I mean HUGE.

"…cousin?"

And he batted his eyelashes rather prettily, a habit he'd actually picked up from Netto, of all people.

Roll winced.

"Anything else?"

The question, though sweet-voiced, caused Axl's shoulders to sag and his bottom lip to jug out. The impression of disappointment he projected was so deep, you'd expect the cat ears attached to his helmet to level themselves down against his head.

"Why can't I get a cousin?"

"It's just…" how do you tell a child, especially a child whom you love with all your heart, that he cannot get a playmate because there still hasn't been found a way to make someone like him? How do you explain to him that he's not only special, but unique in the most literal sense of the world, and could have no companion because it simply doesn't exist?

"Not… yet, Axl." She reached out towards him, but to no avail. Axl scuttled back against his Papa's legs, and looked up at him, jutting bottom lip and all.

"Papa, why can't I have someone to play with? Am I doing something wrong? Am I not good enough? I promise I'll try harder! I'll be better! Really!"

"You have me," Roll pointed out gently. "And Rush."

"And Gutsman and Glyde and Iceman," Rockman added, putting his arms around Axl, who looked just about ready to cry.

"But I don't want a grown-up, I want a child," whining, and turning on Roll eyes that were huge and mournful. "I want someone who's like me! Someone who was born! Someone who has parents! Someone who can grow up like I do, that will discover things with me, and that I can teach to!"

Roll and Rockman shared a glance, suddenly at a loss. It looked like even at such a young age Axl was aware of his uniqueness, and was suffering for it. His wish for a cousin wasn't a childish whim, but a request stemming from a deep, serious need for companionship. Who would've guessed?

"Welllllllllllllllllll…" Roll tried after a while, in a sing-song tone. "I don't know about a cousin, but you might get a brother or sister, if you're super-nice."

As predicted, Rockman turned a shade darker. However, even if her jibe did snap Axl out of his depression, it caused a reaction she could've never predicted.

The child gaped at her, eyes wide like a deer's caught in the headlight and growing slowly but steadily huger, huger, huger. Once his eyes had grown so big they looked like they couldn't fit in his face anymore, Axl released a series of indignant squeaks, convoyed by jerky hand gestures. Then, frustrated with his own incapability to communicate, Axl threw his arms in the air, cried "NO!" and, turning, he flyingtackleglomped his Papa. They both went barrelling to the floor, Axl on top and clinging to his father with both arms and legs.

Roll wondered whether to laugh or help Rockman up, decided that both would ruin her fun, and settled for doing nothing.

"What?" she asked, with a mirthful note in her voice. "But I thought…"

Axl didn't even let her finish. He shook his head frantically, and glared at her, those pretty eyes of his all wet and fiercely aglow.

"No! No, no, no, no! Daddy and Papa are mine! I'm not sharing them with anyone else! They belong to me!"

"…nice to know we're so loved," came a dry, but highly amused voice behind them.

Axl disentangled himself from around his Papa with another cry (this one ecstatic). Lunging for his Daddy, he twined around his leg like a climbing-plant around a column, and began to purr (the ears weren't the only trait he shared with felines, it seems).

Blues put a gentle hand on his son's head, and bent to offer the other to Rockman. Rockman accepted the help, and got up from the floor with a smile.

"How come you're here alone? Where are Enzan-kun and Netto-kun?"

Blues made a gesture of greeting towards Roll, then focused on his – boyfriend? Husband? Damn, they really should settle for a term! – with a grimace.

"The elevator they were in stopped moving, and they are trapped between the 16th and 15th floor. Since neither the intercom or the emergency alarm button are functioning, Enzan-sama plugged me in the net to come and get help."

Promptly, Rockman offered to go keep the boys company while Blues notified the malfunctioning to whoever could help. But even as the couple spoke, Roll began to feel uneasy.

At first, a nagging suspicion settled in the back of her mind – wasn't it odd that both the intercom and the alarm inside the elevator were off, but the internet connection functioned? If there had been a power-shortage then why, of all the apparatus and machineries in the skyscraper, only the elevator the boys were in had been affected? And now that she thought about it… (she looked about to confirm her first impression) …how come there wasn't even one single Navi in the usually-crowded area?

She was turning her doubts around in her head, finding them too silly to be voiced, but not not-silly enough to be completely discarded, when another, more sickening emotion took hold of her, making her stiffen.

Dread. Panic. The kind that claws at the insides of small animals, when a predator corners them.

"Blues-kun, Rock-kun…" she began, darting quick glances around. She was sweating, and something inside her felt off, as if they were being watched, or worse, part of their data was being tampered with.

The other Navis looked at her, and were immediately set on edge but her obvious distress.

"Roll-chan…?" Rockman asked, stepping towards her.

"Rock-kun, I think…"

But she couldn't finish.

The sound of small, insistent scratching began to echo from all around them, as though they were inside a room, and a multitude of sharp little claws were pawing against the walls from the outside. As the temperature dropped, the scratching gained speed and volume, until the area was filled with the noise of nails on a chalk board.

Suddenly the very air seemed to shatter, like a glass to which has been applied too much pressure. A dark slime began to drip from the cracks, drawing a wide girdle around the four Navis.

For a few, long moments, nothing else happened. Then the slime began to simper, revealing a multitude of glowing yellow eyes, more animalistic than human. Then wide, crooked mouths appeared under the eyes: lipless holes parted around pink wet gums and sharp little fangs, and the slime moulded itself into a horde of squishy creatures, soft and dripping like molten candy.

Roll put a hand to her mouth to suppress a scream. Squicked, Axl clung to his Papa, hiding his face against his legs. Rockman put himself protectively before Axl, charging his buster; and Blues put himself before him in turn, cyber sword at the ready and glowing a neon red.

The creatures slithered towards them like goo or oil; a dark bristling wave that hissed, steamed, churned, muttering something unintelligible all the while. Their stench became more and more horrible as they advanced, something sickly sweet like rotten fruit and wilted flowers that made the Navis reel back as though slapped.

"What… what are those things?" Roll gasped, recoiling when one of the slimy things leaped at her. Blues turned towards her long enough to dispose of her attacker, and said nothing. Rockman ran a quick scan, and made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat.

"Whatever they are, they fall aren't just infecting the cyberspace, they are bending it and eating it away!"

"They're what?" Roll shrieked, cowering when a slimy tendril leaped blindly at her.

"Whatever you do, don't let them touch you!" Rockman advised even as he emptied his buster in the slimy lots.

"Oh, I'm not planning to!" she cried out, swinging an attack of her own.

Blues muttered a low-sounding answer, smirking when his cyber sword cut cleanly through the closest creature, instantly deleting it. Spinning, he slashed the glowing blade through another three of those things, and cleaved another two with a third swing, watching their sticky remains gather into a poll of goo. Then Roll shrieked: "Look out!" and Blues leaped back without question, cursing when he saw four – five – seven – no, nine creatures erupt from that very same poll, as though rejuvenated. He slashed at the closest, then went back to crouching defensively before Rockman and Axl.

"We are getting nowhere! The more we delete, the more come back!" shouted Rockman.

"A multiplying virus?" asked Roll.

Blues shook his head.

"No. Their behaviour is… atypical for viruses. It's like they are springing from some hidden flow."

"You mean…?"

"They aren't multiplying, they are being downloaded in here."

"And we can't log out." Roll informed, face twisted in annoyance.

Rock tapped into his systems long enough to confirm her words.

"Great."

As they spoke, the creatures had been closing in on them on all sides. Noticing this, Blues leapt forth and slashed a hole in the almost-solid wall of creatures, managing to reclaim some ground. Summoning her bow, Roll rained a volley of pink-tipped arrows over his head, forcing their enemies further backwards.

Rockman was about to dash past her in a charge, when a blur of something small and purplish dashed under his arm.

"I can help too, Papa!"

"Axl, no!"

Too late.

Axl had already sprung to the forefront, trying in vain to summon an attack he shouldn't even have, let alone knew how to control.

"Sonic Boom!" Axl cried. And then again: "Sonic Boom! Sonic Boom!", when nothing happened.

With nothing deterring them, the creatures reared up before the little kid like a tidal wave, rolled and then bent over to engulf him.

Axl cried out and made himself small, trying to shield himself with his raised arms. He waited with baited breath for the impact, feeling helpless and silly and quivering like a leaf, but at the last moment he was picked up, flung out of the way and suddenly, wonderfully he was soaring through the air.

His mind didn't have time to process what was happening that he was already crashing into Rockman's arms. His core pounded in his ears like the hooves of a galloping horse, and he thought he would never again open his eyes, he was so scared.

Then his Papa uttered a wail, something shrill and hearth-wrenching, the likes of which he'd never heard before, and Axl's core stilled on the spot. His eyes shot open on their own accord and, turning, he saw.

His Daddy stood where Axl had been just a moment before, caught in the middle of the dark wave, and was screaming in utter, mindless pain. The slimy matter had curled around his calves and was inching upwards with a sloshing sound. Dripping tendrils reached up from the poll of darkness at his feet, and coiled like ropes around Blues's waist, neck, shoulders, and slipping under his armour like worms or needles, slipping under his living skin.

Axl howled like a wounded thing at the sight. Rockman teetered for a moment, knees buckling underneath him. He thought he could hear Roll cry out Blues's name, but faintly, as though it came from somewhere far away from him, or deep underwater. Then Blues turned towards him, and what he said Rockman heard, and heard it well.

Blues's mouth opened once, twice, twitching with the strain. His lips were a pale purple and cracking. His breath chilled and condensed into white puffs about his cheeks, and there was a fine dusting of frost spreading across his visor.

"G… g-o," he said.

Rockman heaved a shaky breath, shook his head frantically from side to side, feeling his core thump erratically, but didn't manage a verbal response. Blues gnashed his teeth angrily, swaying when the dark wave coiled around his thighs and tugged harshly.

"Go!" he roared, a cracked lion's roar. Then his body had a spasm. The slimy tentacles reached higher, deeper; forcing him down and on his knees.

"Blu…"

The spongy mass was cocooning itself about him now; threading gleaming filaments around his body. Blues surged against his bonds; one final time.

"GO!"he shouted.

And, clenching his eyes shut, Rockman did just that.

He clutched Axl, grabbed Roll's hand and turned. As he ran away, the sound of Blues's last howl of pain trailed after him on red-hued wings.

They dashed through the corrupted space, not slowing once — not when Rockman stumbled, blind with his tears. Not when Axl began to scream and kick in his arms, slashing his arm uselessly towards the sloshing tide that had swallowed his father, screaming Sonic Boom! Sonic Boom! Sonic Boom!Sonic Boom!Sonicboomsinicboomsonicboom! Not when Roll's hand slipped from Rockman's own, and she began to run after him on her own, sobbing softly as she went. Not ever.

They ran, and ran, and ran, and the squeamish creatures gave chase, sneering like horrible jesters. More of that slimy substance began to appear, some of it sprouting in oily polls underfoot, some more dripping in fat rivulets from above.

The air got steadily darker as they went, colder but also scarcer, like it happens on the summit of the highest mountains. The creatures multiplied by the tens, creeping out from everywhere and anywhere, ahead and behind and above and underneath them, even; reaching for the three escapees with dripping little talons.

All of a sudden, a poll of slime gushed out of the ground right under their feet, and Rockman was forced backwards. He fired his buster at the approaching fiends, hissing in enraged shock when they liquefied and reconstructed themselves under his attack. As he lowered his weapon to refill it with energy, a wave of that greasy darkness reared up between himself and Roll. Reaching out, he barely managed to thrust Axl into her arms, and then the same tentacles that had taken Blues were around him, clutching him, choking him, pulling him down, down. Down.

"Rockman!"

"Papa! Papa! Papa!"

Axl reached forward with both arms, wailed when Roll leapt back from the slime before it could twine around his wrists.

"Roll, go!" Rockman shouted, eyes meeting hers — and then more tentacles rose, twined around his arm, clogged his weapon, and forced it down. The remaining creatures came together, melting in a tidal wave twice Rockman's height. It reared up, stilling for an impossible moment over his head before crashing down with a triumphant cry.

Roll leaped backwards. When she refocused her eyes, she saw that the slime had stilled unnaturally fast into a poll as dark and shiny as crude oil. For a moment, there was no trace left of either Rock of his attacker: only a gently-rippled poll, black like pitch but glimmering like metal. Then the slime began to bubble over, and more creatures emerged from its depths, hissing in their malicious language.

She fled. What other option did she have?

Clutching Axl to her chest, Roll ran as fast as she could, until she saw, barely there, a portion of uncorrupted space, an area from which they could hopefully log out and away from that nightmare. She took one single, easier breath, her relief so thick she could almost taste it in her mouth, and then she tripped and fell. She turned frantically, eyes widening when she saw one of those tentacles wrapped firmly around her ankle, drawing both her strength and the very warmth of her core.

As she whipped back around, she saw that Axl had rolled a little ahead of her and was huddled on himself, too shocked to do anything more than sobbing quietly.

"Axl, honey," she began, and her face was determined and sweet and beautiful, as was her smile. "I want you to run now. To run towards that light, and teleport back home. All right?"

Axl shook his head frantically, curling tighter into himself.

"Axl," she repeated, sternly now, as the tendrils streamed further up her leg. "Roll-Oneesan has to stay back for a while. But you must go."

"No!" he looked up sharply, reaching forward with both hands. "Roll-Oneesan!" he wailed. "Roll-Oneesan!"

"Stand back!" she shouted, and Axl recoiled, making himself small. She smiled again then, a little pained smile, but still sweet. "Please?" she coaxed. "For me? And for Daddy and Papa. Go get Netto and Enzan. They will know what to do. They-" and she hated herself even as she said the lie "-will get your parents back, I promise."

Axl looked up, tears clinging to his eyelashes, and nodded once, slowly, picking himself up like a clumsy colt.

"Good Axl. Now go." She winced. "And don't turn back. Promise?"

Axl nodded meekly, and did as he'd been told. Behind him, the black wave rose, rolled soundlessly over Roll and she too was gone.

Axl ran.

And ran.

And ran.

But the patch of clearer digital space didn't seem to come any closer. It seemed to elude him, to taunt him, to move back just as he moved forward, preventing Axl from ever reaching it. He panted and cried and ran. Ran. Ran.

And then, the black wave was upon him as well.

Axl shrieked when then cold tide slammed into his body. He was whisked off his feet, flung up and backwards, curled on himself, rolling and spiralling across the slimy substance. The digital space about him shattered like glass, the shards glinting like wicked eyes, and he found himself falling down, down, in a darkly brilliant chasm, broken data rushing all around him, corrupted files streaming through the void like falling stars.

Just then, a light the likes of which he'd never seen before, a light that wasn't light at all but was darkness, red-hued and cold, slashed through the blobs surrounding him. A hand gripped his wrist, halting his fall.

A cold, but oddly familiar voice came to him through the void, then. A murmur like rushing waters, low yet harsh like glass shattering.

"It's you, then," the voice said. "The child of those fools."

And then Axl fainted, and knew no more.

- Scene 4 cleared.

NOW LOADING…