Title: "Infecten – stage 4 – Manifestation part B"
Author: Nemesi.
Fandom: (MMBN/MMNTW)
Genre: Romance. Humour.
Word Count: 1758.
Characters: Roll, Rush, Glyde, Gutsman, and "Kitty Ears" :3.
Pairings: Blues/Rockman.
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: At this stage, the disease becomes manifest, and a specific diagnosis can be made. I THINK I skipped a stage but… oh, well.
Summary: ...hold on a second. THAT was Kitty-Ears?

The four walked on for another handful on minutes, when suddenly Rush perked his ears, gave a few warning barks, and froze in a hound-like pose, tail held strait and pointing forward with his nose and paw. Roll's eyes widened, and she skipped forward with a cry. Gutsman was hot on her heels. Glyde only a little behind, having taken a second more to recover from the surprise.

Roll rounded a corner at top speed and… stropped. Just like that. Which caused Gutsman to bump into her, and Glyde to bump into him. Rush managed not to add itself to the Navi-sandwich but barely, instead skidding head-first onto the nearest wall available.

Roll couldn't believe it. There before her Kitty-Ears stood (well, squatted), playing happily with a…

"…don't touch that THING!"

Roll's cry of surprise caused Kitty-Ears to look up – green eyes… why were those green eyes so familiar? - and the reptilian virus he was holding to roll on the floor, feet up and kicking in a comical attempt to regain its footing. The thing was dealt a combined blow by Glyde and Gutsman faster that you could name their attacks, and dissipated in a shower of pixels, which Kitty-Ears evidently found pretty, seeing that he tried to catch them as they flew by.

A little disconcerted, Roll let her motherly subroutines take over, and approached Kitty-Ears with her hand outstretched, murmuring quiet reassurances all the while. Kitty-Ears tilted his head – Roll thought he was about to sniff her hand when it came close to his face – and voiced no objections when she knelt down and began to check him over for any sign of damage.

Up close, those green eyes of his where even more familiar. Heck, up close everything about the kid was familiar – green eyes, spiky hair, blue as his outfit's dominating colour… Roll would've said that Kitty-Ears was a little clone of Rockman, if not for the fact that he was a little clone of Rockman during his soul unison with Blues. There were differences, of course, and huge ones at that. The armour was poles apart, for starters. And he had no blade. Still, the resemblance was undeniable and unmistakable: Kitty-Ears was a blend of all that was Rockman and all that was Blues, compressed in a slender, overtly-cute, armoured package with cat-ears extensions on his helmet.

The question: "Who are you?" escaped her lips without consulting her brain first.

Kitty-Ears grinned – she did not just think it looked like Netto's grin… did she? - and poked himself repeatedly on the chest.

"I Axl, Oneesan! Axl!"

A quick look in her data banks confirmed that he was no virus, and that no Navi by such name was in the Net-Police wanted list. Good.

"I'm Roll. This is Rush…" who was currently sniffling Axl all over and waggling his tail happily, "…and these are Gutsman and Glyde. Nice to meet you."

Axl waved, politely if not a little over-enthusiastically.

"Hi!"

Squealed.

No, seriously.

He made a squeal. The likes of which would make a fangirl's pale in comparison.

Roll shook her head at whoever had programmed the kid, and helped Axl to his feet. The poor thing had the speaking capability of a four-years-old human, and a personality to match! What was his creator thinking?

"What are you doing here? This is a dangerous zone, heavily infected! Is your Operator aware of your current location?"

When Axl turned towards Glyde, his eyes, as well as his mouth, were shaped into huge "O"s.

"…I no have an Operator."

There was a collective gasp.

"You don't?"

"No."

"No?"

"Uh-uhn."

"You sure, de gutsu?"

Axl nodded his head so quickly he must have got dizzy, and then added:

"But I have an Ojichan. And an Ojiisan too!"

Wait.

Rewind.

"…you have an uncle and a grandfather?"

Another dizzying nod later, Axl elaborated:

"Yes! But Ojiisan says Axl should call him Ojichan, because he is no much older than Ojichan, but Ojichan says it's fun to call Ojiisan Ojiisan, 'cause it irks him."

…yeah, well, he did elaborate. I never said he also made sense.

"…Right. Uh. Err. How long have you been active again?" Axl struggled a moment, eyebrows furrowing together in the cutest way. Getting the feeling she might have to work with simple concepts here, Roll rephrased her question. "I mean, how old are you?"

Brightening, Axl held up two fingers, then looked expectantly at Roll, as if to say: "Well? Decipher it already!".

"Two years?" Axl shook his head. "Two months?" Negative. "Two weeks?"

"Uh-uh! I was born two weeks ago!"

Roll had to smile at the way he phrased that – he thought Navis were born instead than being activated? How sweet! - and decided not to correct him. Metaphorically taking the kid under her proverbial wing — as well as physically putting her arm around his shoulder — Roll pulled Axl to her and a little to a side. As highly unpractical as it were, she was starting to find his sugar-high toddler personality very endearing. Her motherly subroutines just couldn't resist it.

"How about we take you back home to these Ojichan of yours, mh?"

Axl smiled – which would have caused any lesser Navi than Roll to need a pair of shades, it was so brilliant– and reached new and untold levels of cute.

"Pwease? I want home, but I don't know the way! And the mommy of that pet…" he gestured towards the spot where the virus had evaporated into pixels, "…wouldn't let me go."

Gutsman scratched his head.

"Viruses don't have mommies, de gutsu."

Axl was shocked.

"Do too!"

"They don't, de gutsu. Navis don't have daddies and mommies either, de gutsu."

"Do too!"

"Do not, de gutsu."

"Do too!"

Axl looked like he was about to cry – or the way Rockman did after seeing a ghost, anyway. Pale, with his eyes huge and his mouth pressed into a trembling line. Eeping slightly, Roll leaped forth and clamped a hand onto Gutsman's mouth. A small, whispered quarrel ensued (Roll refused to raise her voice, because who knows how much it could upset the kid?), and then Glyde noticed, and repeated, the one single piece of useful information Axl had supplied with his ramblings.

"…there was a mommy that was keeping you here? Pray tell, what mommy?"

As if on cue, a giant head peered up from behind the wall, and gave a massive roar. Axl squealed, pointed, and even bounced a little on his toes.

"THAT mommy!"

"…oh…"

"…my…"

"…RUN!"

As Roll gave the order, Axl was caught by the waist, summarily hoisted under Glyde's arm and carried away. I suppose I don't need to tell you that the giant reptilian virus – aka, "The Mommy" – immediately gave chase.

Axl squealed, delight evident in his voice.

My, but that was almost as fun as swimming through Ojiisan's password-coded files! Or being bounced by Ojichan while in his PET! He totally wanted to know when they were doing this again.

The other Navis weren't having as much fun, as they sprinted through the net at neck-breaking speed. Uhm, actually they weren't having fun, period. Up and down and left and right and in dizzying circles they went, the Virus hot on their heels.

Truthfully, they had no idea how long they were at it, conscious only of the road before them, of the virus behind, and that they needed to eat as much of the above not to be eaten by the second. But a suitably long amount of time later – during which an exciting escape scene took place – they were still running, and the virus was still giving pursuit.

"What are we supposed to do, now?"

"I don't know! Outrun him?"

There wasn't too much hope in Roll's voice when she said that.

"Gutsman can take it down, de gutsu!"

"No WAY I'm letting you face that thing without Dekao! It'd be too dangerous! You could get hurt, or worse!"

Gutsman kept running at top speed. His efforts not to blush t Roll's concern were about as successful as his previous endeavour not to blush at her smile.

"Then what?"

Roll supplied Glyde with another of her "looks".

"We keep running?"

The virus gave another roar, swishing its tail about (yes, it had a tail) and making the ground tremble under its scaled, fanged, clawed, tailed weight (just to give you a general picture of its looks).

The three Navis (plus one search program) doubled their already incredible speed, almost blurring out of view.

"What to do, what to do, what to do… THERE!" At Roll's cry, the Navis veered to the right, dived into a low passage and hoped… nope. The virus crashed right through the data wall, still hot in pursuit. Roll gave a out a frustrated scream.

"Could someone please do something?"

Anything, really.

REALLY.

And Axl gave a whine.

"Roll-Oneesan! Are we going home, now?"

Because sure, it was fun, but he was tired and sleepy, not to mention that he wanted his parents about NOW.

Roll spared the kid a sweet, if hurried smile, and dodged a couple of energy-shots, courtesy of the virus behind her.

"Of course, honey. As soon as that virus-" jerking her thumb over her shoulder "-decides it's had enough of running."

There was a slightly awed expression on Axl's face when he said:

"That a virus?" As though realizing it now. Then, brightly: "My Daddy always makes viruses go away!"

"Sure thing, honey."

Run, run, run.

"No, really! When it's time for sleep mode I get scared, so Daddy looks in the shadows, and kills all evil viruses so they can't get at me while I sleep!"

Run, dodge, run, run.

"…yeah."

Dodge.

"No, really! It's Daddy's job! He's a Virus Slayer, you know? He's a hero! He waves his arm at the viruses like so-" he demonstrated "—then screams SONIC BOOM! And the viruses go puff!"

…which is exactly what happened to the virus behind them. Axl had waved his arm around, screamed SONIC BOOM at the top of his digital lungs, and mommy-virus had gone "puff".

Roll skidded to a sudden alt and whirled around, gaping incredulously at the fountain of pixels that had once been a monster-virus.

"What the…?"

It then occurred to her to glance at Axl, and she was shocked to see that his arm had morphed into what looked like an upgraded version of Rockman's buster… a buster that could release Blues's most powerful, wind-based attack.

Axl looked down at its new addition and blinked.

"…Oooops?"

- NOW LOADING…