Title: "Infecten – stage 5 – Maturation 10/?"

Author: Nemesi.

Fandom: (MMBN)

Genre: Romance. Humour.

Word Count: 3991.

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: Realworld, Cyberworld, Uranet. A lot of things are happening, anywhere. And not all of them are bad…

For Enzan, life with the Hikaris was proving to be more fun that he'd allowed himself to think (but twice as chaotic as his worst assumptions). Netto was a force to reckon with: always hyper, always positive, always talking, tugging, yelling and pouting, always clinging to him and stealing all their covers at night (the brat!). But Ijuin Enzan was trained in the fine art of keeping investors at bay, so he could deal with Netto just fine.

Harder to deal with were Netto's parents.

Yuuichiro and Haruka were wonderful people, and Enzan had the deepest respect for them both. But living with someone who cared about his well being was something Enzan wasn't accustomed to. His bond with Shuuseki had never been particularly deep, and their tenuous relationship had gone to waste after Enzan's mother had died.

As for his mother, Enzan remember her but vaguely – he was four when "mama" left him, and what little he remembered was as hazy and vague as a dream: lingering impressions like the slating light shining white on her curls, the sweet smell coming from the tender hollow of her throat; the dry softness of her lips against his forehead, the quiet chinking of her earrings, the glass-like tinkle of her laugh, that often ended in coughing.

It shamed him a little, but the truth was that Enzan had problems remembering his mama's face and given name. However, he wasn't to blame for that: Shuuseki had all but banned that name from their home and destroyed every picture of her, acting as though burying his wife's memory along with her body might do them some sort of good.

Haruka and Yuuichiro's warm, supporting presence was hard to deal with at times (Enzan still struggled with the concept that someone could wake up in the wee hours of the night to cook him up his favourite European-style breakfast, just for the sake of seeing him happy), but their efforts to make him feel welcome weren't unappreciated.

In the end, the person Enzan had most problems dealing with was the least imaginable.

The Hikari household was made up of Netto, Haruka and Yuuichiro; but Meiru spent so much time in their home, she had become family by virtue of habit.

And Meiru was… something else.

Don't get me wrong: she was a wonderful girl. Pretty like a flower, even if she could sting like a bee when need be. She was sweet, and she was lovely to look upon; she was kind and funny and generous.

But… that's exactly the problem.

Wherever you looked at it, Enzan just wasn't born with the ability to deal with the sweet and lovely and kind and funny. He could eat loan sharks for breakfast, but sweet and lovely and kind and funny did him in. Especially when they came armed with:

a) deep and dark puppy-dog eyes,

b) an understanding smile,

c) a sisterly relationship with his current roommate that might be the last embers of a crush (or a crush that might be the natural evolution of sisterly affection, he just wasn't sure); and

d) a tendency to hug or hold Enzan whenever he looked even the least bit sad or worried (which is to say, almost 24 hours a day).

Her attachment to Netto and her addiction to the usage of Enzan as a teddy bear were annoying traits on their own. But Meiru was also a closet yaoi enthusiast (of all things a girl could be!), which elevated her from the position of "pretty, amusing nuisance" to "potentially hazardous threat to Enzan's sanity".

She claimed to have a sort of… radar… or spider sense… or something… (Enzan didn't want to know the details) that caused her to see things that weren't there, and to smirk knowingly whenever Netto clung to him and Enzan took more than 0.00001 seconds to detach himself. It was that same spider-radar-sense-yaoi-something, that drove her to nickname Enzan her "rival-dear".

Enzan wasn't stupid. He knew what Meiru saw – or thought she saw – between Netto and himself. However, Netto totally failed to see the subtle implications heaped in the nine letters of that nickname. Whenever Meiru used it, he'd latch possessively onto Enzan's arm, DEMANDING she found her own rival 'cuz Enzan belonged to HIM. (Underlined, capitalized, and stressed.). It only made things worse, obviously.

For his own sanity, Enzan mostly ignored the downwards spiral of madness that were Meiru and Netto combined, so we're not allowed to discuss their antics in public sites, sorry.

…buuuuuuuuut, what we are allowed to do, is take a peek on those antics as they're performed.

About a week had come and gone since the abduction, and Haruka had all but forced Enzan to take a pause in his investigation, least he ran himself ragged. Currently, our boy-wonder was sitting on the Hikaris couch, counting the seconds until he was allowed to go back to his search.

He sat with one leg across the other, chin propped on his fist. His lips were in a thin line, and his eyes held an attentive, calculating look that hinted to his preoccupation.

He was still in full-frown mode when Netto, The King of Subtlety, went and flicked him on the forehead.

"You'll get wrinkles if you think too hard," he explained, with the air of someone who knew everything there was to know about the subject.

Enzan rolled his eyes.

"As if you knew anything about thinking," he swatted Netto's hand away, smirking at the pout his jibe evoked. "Any news?"

"Nope. But Laika said they're still detecting an awful lot of activity in the Uranet," Netto shrugged. "It was the zero area this time."

"The lowest level of the Net? What would that mean?"

"Beats me."

"Maybe whoever got Rockman, Blues and Axl is hiding there?" Meiru offered, going to sit beside Enzan on the couch.

Netto shook his head.

"Laika checked, and Raoul did too. And they could find nothing wrong, other than lots of rumours about some Dark Navi or the other being on the move."

"…and high levels of electricity," Enzan finished. "Which leads us to believe that something is brewing in there. What, we're not sure."

Meiru pressed her fingertips to her lips, a faraway look in her eyes.

"I hope they are all right." She turned towards Enzan in time to see a flash of haunted concern waft by his eyes, and reached out to tangle their fingers together.

"They have to be!" Netto cried, jumping on the couch between his two friends. "Let's have some faith in them!"

He was way too distracted to notice (or didn't notice on purpose, or better yet had been oblivious when he should have realized) that his sudden leap would have crushed Meiru's arm, hadn't she wrenched herself away from Enzan.

She glared at Netto for a moment, then noticed something that made her smile, then smirk, then giggle pleasantly to herself. Netto was leaning more on Enzan than on the back of the couch as he chatted, and pushing closer by the second, sort of keeping Enzan from Meiru and vice-versa.

For his part, Enzan was leaning so far over the armrest to prevent body contact with Netto that his back was arched taut like a bow. He kept darting quick glances at Meiru, not knowing if he was dealing with her yaoi-loving persona or the crushing-on-Netto one, and feeling wary of both.

Meiru (un)helped things by casually leaning towards Netto, who burrowed deeper into Enzan, who leaned further out of the couch.

When the inevitable happened, and the two boys fell in a pile of tangled limbs on the floor, Meiru's laugh rang high and clear, a very welcome sound in those hard times.

Speaking of sounds, the first thing to come to us as we switch to the Uranet, is a sort of holler:

"KURO-OJICHAAAAAAAN!"

And before you ask: no, it wasn't a happy holler.

It was a ZOMG-I'M-BEING-CHASED-BY-AN-EVIL-THING-OF-DOOM-PLEEZ-SAVE-ME kind of holler.

The Evil Thing of Doom in question was a giant butterfly-shaped virus, with pale yellow wings that rained shimmering gold pixels with each majestic beat. Its eyes were dark and glossy, like black marbles, and glowed faintly in the low, distorted light of that forbidden land. Its antennae were twitching, and its many legs were covered in a soft-looking fuzz, pink like peach, and striped with red.

Even as he ran from it (read: bolted at light speed across the terrain), Axl looked over his shoulder at the thing and waved his arm like crazy, screaming a pitch when the Sonic boom refused to work – as per usual.

"KURO-OJICHAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

Hearing the call, Kuro put his face in his palm, and sighed. Obviously, the language awkwardness that affected the child's black-visored, silver-haired father must have been passed onto Axl as well.

For some reason, whenever Kuro said "I'm not your friggin' uncle, dammit! Let go of me!" the pest heard something along the lines of, "why yes, call me any way you like, dear heart; and while you're at it, please keep clinging onto me hard enough to cut off the circulation in my limbs". And now he was stuck with the nickname.

"KURO-OJICHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" Axl hollered, yet again.

Kage walked up to Kuro on the crest of a small hill. He glanced briefly at the game of tag Axl was playing with the butterfly down below, then advised: "you might want to assist the little one before he is eaten," which earned him an elbow in the stomach (Kage dodged it, of course; but it's the thought that counts).

"The Ornithoptera Virus doesn't eat Navis," Kuro growled at him.

"Still, it looks like the perfect moment for a heroic deed."

"Heroic deed my-"

"Language," Kage chided, looking thoroughly amused.

Not that anyone would be able to tell he was amused. With half his face covered by helmet and visor, his I'm-amused-beyond-words expression wasn't any different than his usual holier-than-thou expression. Or any other expression he'd ever worn, actually.

Kuro crossed his arms and glared at Kage with a passion.

"I'm not helping the blubbering idiot's son! Hell, that oversized bug doesn't even know he's there, what is he so scared of?"

True enough. The Ornithoptera Virus was so huge and Axl so small, it probably hadn't even noticed him. The child just happened to find himself on the virus's path towards food, which was a field of ripe, corrupted data of a pale lavender colour just a little down the road. Hadn't Axl be so swift on his feet, the butterfly would've passed him without a second a glance, already.

"KURO-OJICHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!"

A vein began throbbing on Kuro's forehead, very fast. Kage weighed the benefits of keeping his mouth shut, decided it was always fun to see Kuro pitch a fit, and proceeded to point and comment on aforementioned thumping vein.

He had to sidestep ere a charged plasma shot made intimate contact with his head.

"Shut up," Kuro hissed, straightening back to his full (if not so imposing) height, and crossing his arms in annoyance.

"I do believe you should help the child," Kage coaxed, gesturing towards Axl with a smirk.

"Thanks, but no thanks."

"So stubborn. Why don't you try doing as I say, for once?"

"Why would I?"

"You might enjoy it."

"Like a kick in the stomach."

Kage shrugged.

"That's what you say."

Kuro scoffed.

"Why don't you help him, instead?"

"It's not me he's calling for."

"Easily solved." Kuro tossed his head to a side, not even turning fully, and hollered: "Kid-thing! The leech here says he'll come save your sorry hide if you call for him!"

It took him longer to say it, than it took Axl to do it, really.

"KAGE-OJICHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANN!"

Faster than light, Kage disappeared from his current spot in front of Kuro, appeared above the butterfly virus, and split it neatly in two with his blade. The butterfly beat its wings once or twice before the two halves of its body decided it'd be nice to go separate ways, and oh! falling towards the ground looked like fun, too.

Kage landed on one knee beside Axl, hauled the kid in his arms, and literally blurred out of sight, he was so fast. Kuro barely had the time to blink, that Axl was thrust in his arms, arms were thrust under his own knees and behind his shoulders, and he was carried away a moment before the Ornithoptera Virus made a crash-landing on the hill where he'd been standing.

Kage landed on a nearby outcrop, Kuro in his arms and Axl in Kuro's own. Of his charges, one looked annoyed and the other utterly delighted. I don't need to tell who was feeling what, right? I mean, a delighted Kuro is a sight I've yet to come across.

"Kage-Ojichan! That was so cool! You're almost as fast as Daddy!" Almost. 'cause really, there might be awesome people in the Net and all, but no one could even hope to come close to his parents.

"You sonnuva- put me down! DOWN!"

That was Kuro, if you hadn't gathered that already just by the… tone. Yeah. Tone.

Freeing one arm from around Axl, he went to swat Kage behind the head. As usual, his attempts to hurt Kage proved ineffective, were easily evaded, and totally ignored to boot.

"We'll proceed faster, if I carry you."

"KAGE!"

"Yes?"

"Put me down this instant!" pointing at the ground for clarity, as though Kage might somehow mistake up with down, and toss him instead than lower him.

Kage cocked an eyebrow – and even though Kuro had no way of knowing that, he bristled like an angry cat.

"You sure about that?" Kage asked, silkily, tossing his head down and to the right.

Kuro followed his line of vision, became aware of the sheer drop opening below them, and twitched. He wasn't afraid of heights, not with his cat-like ability to always fall on his feet. But he'd rather stay away from deep dark chasms and the like all the same. He knew that one can fall from high places, and how easily it was to be dislodged from within someone's arms when you're freefalling, especially when you've jumped from, say, a floating castle like Kyuraweil and such.

…not that he would know from experience or anything.

"I guess 'later' is a more feasible option than 'now', isn't it?" Kage insisted. "Unless you're suicidal. Are you suicidal, Kuro?"

Kuro scowled (not! Pouted!), barely refrained from hitting Kage with Axl (yes, you read that right), and curled into a defensive position.

And he does see you laugh, so stop it now.

"I'm gonna delete you one of these days," he muttered.

"Hardly any news," Kage shrugged. Hoisted his charges higher and closer to his chest. "Hold on tight. Both of you."

In a swirl of grey hair, Kage swivelled around and leaped away from the crashing site. In his arms, Kuro kept nursing his bruised ego, muttering barely-audible bodily threats. In Kuro's arms, Axl was giggling so much, he could barely breathe. My, but these two new Ojichan were so much fun! He, like, totally loved them already.

He couldn't wait to tell Daddy and Papa all about them…

Currently, Daddy and Papa were kneeling together in one of Kyuraweil's cells, poring over a holographic image.

The hologram depicted a schematic map of Kyuraweil, a prospect they'd been able to elaborate thanks to both their exploration and Blues's Spectacular (if Worrying) Abilities to hack into the Keep's system.

At closer inspection, their prison seemed to be the digital equivalent of a giant beehive. Its outward shape was that of a chestnut, more or less: narrow on top and with a large, round base. Inside, it was composed of multiple layers of cells, parallel to each other, and relatively uniform in shape and size. Blues and Rockman had been held in the upper part of the Keep; beneath that level of cells there were rows of databanks, labs, and storage rooms, in that order.

The Control Room had been built at the lower edge of the Keep, nestled deep in a maze of heavily-guarded corridors, and it was that room that currently held their interest.

Blues indicated it on the map with a flick of his hand.

"The protection there is heavier, and not as old as the rest of the Keep. I'm…" unfamiliar with it, he wanted to say, but held his tongue in check. "…not sure how to hack it."

Rockman nodded his head, and made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat.

"So, if Axl is here…"

"…he can be only in that one room, yes." Blues traced his finger across the map, encircling the whole of the Keep. "There's no trace of his signature anywhere in the rest of the structure."

Rockman exhaled a sigh, parting his lips in a smile, and regarded Blues with eyes that shone with relief.

"That's good."

Blues nodded in agreement. If Axl had been in one of the upper cells he might have been mistreated by fake copies of his parents; if he had been in the labs, he might have been used as a guinea pig, prodded, questioned and studied mercilessly. If he was in the main room, then he was probably as safe and comfortable as one could get in that place.

"Where do we go from here?" Rockman tapped his lips thoughtfully, eyebrows drawing together in thought.

Blues hesitated a moment, as though wanting to collect his thoughts. When he spoke, his voice was low, earnest, interlaced with that sort of rough sweetness reserved only for Rock, but unyielding nonetheless.

"Rock, listen. I've thought about it, and it seems our best course of action would be to…" he hesitated but a moment, then his jaw set. "…split up."

Blues might as well have slapped him, for the look that appeared on Rockman's face. He gaped at his mate, and his chest felt so tight he suddenly found it hard to breathe.

"…w-what?" he croaked.

Reaching out, Blues touched Rockman's cheek, briefly, then moved his fingers to cup the back of Rockman's neck.

"One of us should go back to the Upper Net to report our findings. The other should stay behind, and try to sabotage this place from within." His lips quirked, a grimace born of dark humour. "And I don't need to tell you who's the best Navi for that job."

Rockman's eyebrows furrowed together, but Blues placed his palm over his mouth to prevent him from speaking.

"It's for the best, Rock. Axl needs his parents. We must…"

Rockman wrenched himself free, and glared at Blues with eyes made fierce with both hurt and anger.

"I'm not leaving you here on your own, Blues. Don't count on it."

"You'd rather leave Axl alone?"

Rockman shook his head.

"As far as we know, Axl could be home right now, with Netto-kun and Enzan-kun and Roll-chan to take care of him."

"That's exactly why you should go back."

"No, that's exactly why I should stay here. Axl could be anywhere, you know that. He could be deeper inside the Keep, somewhere we cannot access yet. Or he could be back home. The thing is: we have no way of knowing."

Rockman cupped Blues's cheek with one hand, trying to assuage the fierceness of his voice.

"If he's home, he doesn't need saving, doesn't need me rushing to his side only to be told that I left his Daddy behind. But if he's here… then I have to stay. We're so close to this place's core. We just need to push a little further on. Once we reach it, we sabotage it, and go back home. That's how we've always handled things – diving straight for them. Why should we do any different this time?"

"Rock, we're parents now. I understand the importance of sabotaging this place, but we can't act rashly only just because we feel like it. We have a child to think of."

"Yes," Rockman said promptly, eyes earnest. "You're right. I'm a parent now. My priorities have to be a little different than before."

There was a pregnant silence from Blues, though not by choice: he probably would've said something, had Rock paused to take a breath.

"As a parent, my first duty is to make sure that my son is always safe."

Blues tried to agree, but Rock didn't give him the chance.

"And that he has what he needs. And what would he need the most if not his parents back home? So it comes without saying that my duty now is to come with you, so that I can check that Axl is not in any danger, and also make sure he gets back what he needs most – the both of us," Rock concluded, smiling in triumph.

Blues went still for a moment, blinking under that visor of his, then expelled an amused, if resigned, sound.

"There's no winning against you, is there?"

"Nossir."

Blues sobered instantly.

"Rock… I see the logic in your words. But if we fail… Axl will have lost us both. If you go back, at least one of us will have…"

Rockman shook his head, effectively silencing his mate.

"You think that sending me back will improve my chances of survival. But you know it will lessen yours. And I'm not going to take the risk. I've lost you too many times already. I'm not letting it happen again." He gripped Blues's hand, tightly. "Together we're stronger, Blues. We're unbeatable. If Axl is in the Keep's core, together we will find him. If he isn't, we will destroy it, and go back home. Together."

He sat back on his haunches, face earnest.

"So, where do we go from here?"

"Rock…"

"Where?" with a no-nonsense tone he'd picked up from Blues himself, of all things.

Blues looked away from him and to the map.

"I wouldn't mind taking a peek inside the labs," he said after a thoughtful pause.

Rockman peered at him through his lashes, studying Blues and trying not to be obvious about it.

Though his mate was hiding it, being in that place unsettled him, and deeply. A detour in the labs might be of more importance to Blues that he might be willing to admit.

Rockman shifted his eyes back to the holo-map, and pursed his lips. Even the shortest route to the Control Room would bring them close to at least three of the biggest labs. A detour would cost them a few minutes at best, and a few hours at worst. Surely he could allow it? If only for Blues's sake?

His eyes went back to Blues, the drawn face, the grim set of his jaw, the pale mouth, beautifully shaped, and so stern. There was something about that place… something mysterious that connected it to Blues. And this connection upset his mate, if not flat-out frightened him. Rockman wanted to ease that fear, chase it away. He wanted to uncover what that connection was and — in case it proved dangerous to either Blues or Axl — banish it without mercy.

His mind made, Rockman reached out, put his hand on Blues's own, and gave it a squeeze.

"I want to see the labs, too," he assured.

And it wasn't a lie.

- Scene 10 cleared.

NOW LOADING…