Mega man Battle Network: Virus mutations

Chapter 8: The Zero Virus

It was a relatively short ride, in an hour they were coming down on a Helipad on top of the island off of Eltgo city. It some time around 3’o clock, the sun was shining brightly through the patches of gray clouds though it was still raining, much harder here then in Dentek.

Lan climbed out of the Helicopter directly behind Enzan, wiping the water from his face that was thrown at him from the rotating blades.

“This way.” Enzan called out over blaring noise of the rain and the helicopter, leading them towards a door at the east edge of the heliport. He opened the steel barrier, holding it for Lan, Tadashi and Megaman in before closing it behind them.

Like the lower levels Lan had seen the last time he was here, the hallways on the upper floors were an undisclosed white with long florescent lights and markings on the wall for room identification. This one was marked

' Helipad corridor B’

At the end of this hall was an elevator with a long list of buttons that would confuse anyone, Enzan pressed one labeled ’14’ and lent against the wall as it descended..

“So, do you have any details about this virus?” Tadashi asked “Any differences from the last one?”

“It’s technically not a virus, it’s an unfinished converter program.” Enzan explained. “It converts anything it comes in contact with in to worthless data that a normal system can‘t read. That’s why any means to stop it fail, because it converts absolutely everything.”

“And you’ve tried cutting off all connections to the net?” Tadashi asked.

“That’s what makes it so dangerous, this version of the virus travels wirelessly, and everything is wireless.” He was right, very few devices used actual wires to transmit data anymore. “Even if we disable the wireless ports It can leave a system anytime it wants and re-enter in another system. That’s how it got in to the independent servers.”

“Hmm….that’s a serous problem, I’ll do what I can.” Tadashi told him, adjusting his glass as he always did when he was thinking. With his inquiring mind he was already staring to get ideas on how to contain the virus.

“What about you Lan? What’s your plan?” Enzan asked.

Lan wasn’t hesitant with his answer, “I need to see it first, then I’ll know if I can do something about it.”

Enzan wasn’t sure what he meant by, but he knew Lan, and may have been fully capable of stopping this on his own. Or he could get in the way. Enzan knew the second option was more likely, but he decide to believe the first. Stranger things have happened. “Lan.” Enzan closed his eyes, the start of a headache forming.

“What?”

“You should probably get off that wall.”

“?” With out another thought Lan quickly stepped away from the wall as it rolled open, apparently there was an unseen door in the back of the elevator, revealing a control room.

Large panels and video screens lined every inch of the walls like windows, scattered with only 3 people over the entire area. The facility was understaffed and stretched thinly, everyone else were in different parts of the faculty. “Ok, let me see him.” Lan slowly entered the room, taking curious steps forward.

“This one.” Enzan led him to a separate panel in the far end of the room mounted in a terminal.

“Is that him?” Megaman asked, staring at the screen, this sight was so obscure that he had to ask. “Is that really Zero?”

There were still some traces of Zero in the creature, it was red, and it still carried the light sword that Zero had. But it was a huge monstrosity, seemingly a mass of red flesh. A torso, after the waist the rest of it’s body splurged outward in the shape of pooling water. And he was about a hundred times taller, and had no legs, not to mention this grotesquely mutated face.

“No... it kinda looks like it used to be...” Lan shook his head with a tone of sadness in his voice, he couldn't believe how large a part of him believed that this was actually Zero. But the facts didn't lie, this did kinda look like him, he was red, and that sword... Plus the fact that the system he was looking at was infected, it had to be him. But what happened to him? “Something must have changed him…”

'What are they talking about?' Enzan looked at the virus, then back at Lan. “Lan? You’ve seen it before?”

Lan nodded, but then shook his head. “It’s not the same person... I remember the last time I saw him, he said ’I’m as good as deleted’, whatever happened to him after that must of did this to him.” This was probably what happened when a virus's data became corrupted.

Enzan wasn't really sure what he and Megaman where talking about, but Lan seemed to know more about this then anyone else. “He’s been absorbing data, everything he could touch at first, but now selective bits and pieces of files. I think that’s why he hasn’t went in on to the net.” Enzan told him.

Megaman noticed that Enzan was referring to Zero as ’he’ instead of ‘the virus’ now.

Enzan left from the panel and headed over to Tadashi who was working diligently at a panel in the center of room. He was focusing on containment, he seemed to have experience in this type of thing.

“I don’t have anything yet…” Tadashi told him, glancing at the boy who know stood before him. “But I’m looking over the areas of the system the virus attacked. The information is sketchy, I need you to tell me what this room is.” He pointed to a room on the map programed in to the system. From the blue print it was the largest room in the building, a circular one that stood in the center as if the core of something.

“That room was a mainframe used for data conversion, Net Navis in the Bio-android project need to be converted in to a special data type. It's resource consuming so something with a lot of processing power is needed.” Enzan explained.

The parts and plans looked familiar to Tadashi’s last project, a holographic projector that converted Navis in to a different file type to do so. If he changed a few things he could probably use the security camera to do the same basic thing, that's how similar it was. But that wasn’t a priority right now, that only meant it would be easier for him to find his way around the system.

Lan stared in contention at the screen, watching Zero’s actions. The way he was howling made it seemed as if he was in pain, but he could hardly tell from looking at the distorted face. Something, an idea was forming… he could feel it, and Megaman could see it on his face.

The same thought hit them at the same time.

“Hey Lan, you said Zero was like a Navi right?” Megaman asked.

“Yeah, you can still see him... almost.” Lan agreed, his eyes still fixed on the screen.

“Well, do you think that--”

“Some of the old Zero's data is in that thing?”

Megaman nodded, they really did have the same idea. “Uh-huh.”

“Maybe…” Lan looked up from the panel, turning toward Enzan. “Hey Where is this?”

“Where is what Netto?” Enzan asked.

Lan pointed to the screen, and Zero. “Where his he now?”

“That system is the first holding room under the mainframe.”

“Is that the room Megaman was in?”

“…Yes.” Enzan wasn't really sure where he was going with this.

“Was there an emergency exit near it?”

“Yes.” Enzan just nodded blankly. “He's been in the same spot from the start, he never moved.” The Virus had only grew and expanded, but was rooted in the same spot.

Lan remembered that Zero had told him the system down there was an independent server, he still had to try... “Is there anyway to reach it from here?”

“No, it's been cut off and isolated to slow the infection.”

Just as he thought. “I need to get down there then!” Lan said urgently.

“Huh? Why?”

“Trust me, I just need to get there!” Lan nearly shouted it out, it was clear that Lan was determined to get there, so it had to be something important.

“Netto, it’s dangerous down there, half of it is on fire.”

“Fire?”

“The last time I had any communication down there was before an explosion an hour ago. The chemicals down there are highly flammable, it they went up, all of them, it could take out half of this island.” Enzan explained. “I don't want you down there.”

“But that system is independent, there is no other way to get to it!”

How Lan knew that was unknown to Enzan, but he was right. “If you get there, can you stop the virus?”

Lan nodded.

“If you really want to go down there, I’ll take you, but if it’s too dangerous we’re leaving. *Leaving*. ” Enzan sighed deeply, he couldn’t believed he just caved in on anything Lan asked him to do, especially if it involved risking his own life and he didn‘t even know what Lan was planning. This was crazy, this went against everything in Enzan's logic.

Tadashi himself was debating whether or not he should let his son go down to a place potentially life threatening... “Before you go, I do have a plan. It won’t stop the virus, but It will contain it or at lest slow it down. I can put in place a firewall type program and a jamming signal around the island to block any and all wireless transition. It will only work if all the hard connections are severed and I need access to that room I showed you earlier.” Tadashi said.

“It’s on the way, I’ll take you.”

! - ! - !

! - ! - !

They went down a hall opposing to the one they had entered from and took a separate elevator.

“All right Lan, if your going down there. I want you to be careful.” He emphasized that highly. “ Don’t take any unnecessary risks if it’s too dangerous. Enzan, Megaman make sure you take care of him.” Tadashi said firmly, both of the boy's nodded.

The front door of the elevator opened about halfway to Lan's destination, there Tadashi got off.

The doors closed and the elevator began descending again. “So what exactly are you planning?” Enzan asked, now was the perfect time fore him to be let in on this plan of his.

“I’ll going to get the old Zero back.” Lan said confidently.

Enzan wasn't really sure what Lan meant by that. “And just how are you planning to do that?” Enzan closed his eyes and sat leaned back against the wall.

“I’m going to talk to him.” Lan could guess what was going to happen next.

“What! Your going down there to put your life in danger, and that’s the best plan you have!” Enzan shouted, he couldn't believe this was what they were going on.

“Do you have something better in mind?” Lan asked, and he knew Enzan didn't.

“This is pointless, you can’t talk a virus down. Damnit Lan you idiot!” Enzan yelled angrily. This wasn't worth him risking his life for.

Lan was quiet for a moment, Enzan always called Lan by his real name, he never used Lan, always Netto. “He’s not a virus remember!” Lan yelled back after a long pause.

“That’s even worse, he’s not anything! He’s not going to listen, what are you going to do, go down there and start screaming?”

Lan shook his head, holding up his PET that was on his waist, no one realized that he had it. He barley realized that he'd taken it on the way out he was use to doing it all the time, it was reflex. “If he’s nothing, why are you calling him ’he’ ?” Lan asked in a victorious tone.

Enzan growled in frustration, Lan was right, somewhere in his mind he believed Lan could do this. But the head strong pride part of his mind was getting in the way of that, and logic, Logic was screaming that this was stupid. Sure Lan had managed to pull off some narrow situations, but this? Enzan looked up at Megaman standing idly by, he hadn't said anything this whole time.

Before Enzan could reply, the elevator began to shake. “Huh?” The rumbling became intense quickly, then the elevator began to fall. Before it could tumble anywhere something stopped it.

Megaman grabbed on to the wall to keep from falling just in case more shaking came. “What was that?”

“We have to get out of here, now.” Enzan's voice was calm, meaning the danger wasn't immediate, but decisive so it had to be serious. Luckily the doors rolled open and greeted them with a cloud of black smoke that poured into the elevator and covered the ceiling.

Most of the level was covered in flames, the floors, the walls, the ceiling, but from the severity it didn’t appear to have reached the chemicals in the Bio-android storage lab. Not on this floor at lest, there were damages that suggested containment tanks in the laboratories on other floors had gone up, it's most likely what caused the flames on this level.

Strangely enough, parts of the ceiling where torn open all the way to the top of the island, letting a hard rain fall through. But the rain never seemed to reached the fire, it just served as a vented outlet for most of the smoke. Enzan coved his noise and mouth with his fore arm and walked in to the hallway. It was the same one as before, with a fork in the path ahead, but the smoke was blinding and made it hard to see.

Enzan squinted, the smoke burned his eyes and made them blurry and water. “Come on, we should go back. We’ll never make it anywhere in this smoke!” Enzan said, turning back towards the elevator with Lan and Megaman following behind... Only to see it suddenly plummet with a tail of burning cables wiping around wildly after it.

Megaman, who's vision wasn't nearly as obstructed by the smoke, grabbed Enzan by the waist and abruptly pulled him back, just in time to avoid one of the inflamed cables wiping out of the open doors. “Thank you.” Enzan wiped his teary eyes and thanked Megaman, he was stronger then he looked.

“I guess we have to keep going now.” Lan sighed, or at lest as best he could, the smoke was making his throat burn.

'!' “Move!” Megaman shouted, grabbing both Lan and Enzan by the arms and pulled them forward. Suddenly there was a large crash and an explosion erupted from a lower level of the elevator shaft, strong enough to shake the ground violently. A few seconds later, flames spewed from the elevator shaft, being forced up from the bottom by it's own rising heat and pressure.

“!” Enzan grabbed Lan's head and abruptly pushed him down toward the ground, Lan let out a loud, startled cry when he fell to his knees, just as the flames passed over both of their heads.

“Lan!” Enzan felt the ground beneath him loosen in stability, with out warning he pushed Lan forward by the head just as the floor suddenly dropped. “Ghaaaaaaa!” He was falling, but couldn’t see anything because of the thick smoke. “?” Before he could fall three feet he was caught by something, he looked up and saw that Lan and Megaman both had a tight grip on each of his arms. Some manner of fear or curiosity prompting him to look down, he saw that there was a was a 5 foot drop below him in to raging flames, the source of the smoke and the cause of the floor falling through. He could feel the heat from here, it was... intense. ’The floor burned through, but why is it so hot... The... The gas line is down there!’

“Enzan! Hold on...” Megaman and Lan extracted him up over the edge by his arms with one swift pull, “Are you alright?” Lan asked frantically.

“Yeah thank you.” Enzan told him hastily, he was forced to pause to catch his breath, coughing and gasping from inhaled smoke. “We have to hurry, there's a gas line down there that could go at any second!”

Enzan stumbled on to his feet, then he turned around, taking a quick step back for momentum and jumping blindly diving over the hole. His body plowed through the smoke, landing safely on the other side. “It’s not that far, come on!” Enzan called back.

“Uh...” Lan looked up at Megaman nervously, he like the idea of jumping blindly over a hole he didn't know how big really was with a pit of raging flames he had to face if he didn't make it all the way.

“Go ahead.” Megaman told Lan comfortingly.

Lan swallowed hard with a nod, if Megaman thought he could do it then it couldn't have been that bad. 'Here goose nothing!' With out another thought he jumped across, turns out that he'd made longer jumps, one off a dock in particular. “Wow it really isn't that long, come on Megaman.”

“Ok.” Megaman came through next, diving over the hole and landing on the edge, one that immediately caved in under his weight and broke when he landed. '!' Megaman quickly jumped again and landed a safe distance away from the hole, avoiding the fall.

There wasn’t as much smoke on this side, mainly because there were more of those holes in the ceiling. Rain was pouring in through them, but it not enough made it down this far to have any impact the fires.

Lan looked down the left path and saw those two familiar doors on opposing sides of the hall, smoke pouring out of both from underneath.

“Hurry up Baka! We don’t have much time.” Enzan shouted, snapping Lan out of whatever he was thinking about.

“Yeah!” He pulled the PET off of his waist and connected it to the locked door that led to where he'd found Megaman, Zero had unlocked it for him before.

Instead of a streaming ’201102’ that usually resided on his screen when he turned it on, he got a loud static. 'Huh..?'

“Zero! Zero! Are you in there!” Lan called out, but his words got nothing in return but the same static. “Zero? Come on! I know your in there somewhere... somewhere.” Lan was completely distracted when he felt Megaman tap on his shoulder. “What?”

“Look.” Megaman pointed upward, one of the holes in the ceiling above them lead to a hall near the room Tadashi was working in, somehow he'd heard their voices and followed them to the gap.

“Hey, are you guys alright down there?” He was barely visible through the smoke.

“Well, Not exactly.” Lan called back.

“I saw the elevator, it looks like the only other way out is threw the emergency exit.” Tadashi said, he'd seen it on the map back in the control room.

“What about the stairs?” Enzan asked.

“They collapsed when the elevator went down, you should probably go now, the fires are starting to reach the gas lines up-here.” The gas lines were marked differently then other pipes, he could easily tell them apart.

“What about you? I don’t think there are any other ways off of that floor.” Enzan said.

“There is a service elevator near the mainframe's room, the virus hasn’t completely infected it's system yet. If I can set up that firewall before it does then I’ll be able to get it open.” Tadashi called back.

After a little thinking Enzan remembered the service elevator for loading and unloading supplies used during the mainframe's construction. He also remembered something else about it. “Wait, the locks are too strong, you’ll never get it open.” Enzan protested.

Tadashi was more crafty then that. “I can get the locks off.”

“But that door would be to heavy, you’ll need some help...” Enzan shook his head, there was no way Lan’s father could get that door open, by himself at lest.

“Then we’ll leave and go around.” Megaman suggested.

“No, it’d be to late by then, we need to get up there, now.”

This posed a serious problem... One that Lan seemed able to form a solution too. He looked towards Megaman with an idea forming, “Megaman you could do it, all you’d have to do is climb this hole to get to him. It's much faster then going all the way around.”

“But I can't do that.” His body was just getting used to running, something that he got down pact this morning. Running was one thing, Climbing up a four story gap? No way.

“Yes you can.” Lan told him. “Your really strong, you just get dizzy when you try to do stuff.”

“Dizzy?” Enzan didn't understand, that wasn't suppose to happen. “When do you get dizzy?”

“It happens when I run or try to jump.” Megaman explained “Any sudden or really sharp movement makes me so dizzy that I can't move at all.”

“That shouldn't be happening...” Enzan didn't have much time to think about it, they had to go now. “Your body is really strong, you should be able to do this with out a problem.”

Megaman didn't see himself doing this easily. “But what about-”

“Your gonna have to push through it.” Enzan told him. “From what I can tell there must be an error in your movement processing, calibration, orientation, and balance units. For now your just gonna have to push through it.”

It'd just be another challenge, he'd faced things like this all the time, why would now be any different? “Hmm...” If Megaman had to do it then he would, he'd make himself do it. “But will you guys be alright?”

“Don’t worry about us, we have a way out. You'd better hurry though.” Enzan prompted.

Megaman nodded, looking up at his task with an unwilling expression. It was time to see how strong this body really was, he crouched down on to his knees, clinching his eyes shut and then jumped up as high as he could. The first thing that happened to him was that he got dizzy, but by then he'd already sprang above the ceiling, and that was pretty far in itself. 'Damn..it...' With a tense groan and blurring vision he reached out to a distorted form he could barely see and grabbed a hold of it, it turned out to be the edge of a protruding steel beam on the ceiling of the floor above where he'd jumped from.

He just jumped a story and a half and didn't even realize it, this body really was strong.

“Megaman, are you aright?” Tadashi called down.

“I guess so... I can't see, everything is kind of blurry, and spinning.” If he was a normal person then he would have gotten nauseous by now. Space was tight, there was no way he’d have room to use his legs from this point on. But it seemed he had every bit of the strength he had as a Navi, and the senses too, he couldn’t see in the smoke, it didn't matter since he couldn't see past the the bury vision anyway. But he could avoided fires and electrical currents by their sound and feel of their heat.

'I can... do this.' Megaman grunted loudly and reached up, clinching the first thing he could feel and forced his arms to pull his body up. Enzan was right, he felt like he was stronger then this, but it was as if some heavy weight came to his arms when he did this that canceled out that strength. Megaman reached upward again, holding himself with one hand, and grabbed on to the next thing he felt, the second time it was much harder to pull himself up. His arms became numb and his head began aching, it was like he didn't have arms at all anymore, just a weight.

By the time he made it to the top his ears were ringing so loudly that he could barely hear and he was sure he would throw up, if he could at lest. “Megaman.” Tadashi grabbed his arm and pulled him over the edge, strong enough to lift the decently weight body on to it's feet. Megaman immediately stumbled disorenatedly, Tadashi had to catch him and hold him up stably. “Are you ok?”

He panted heavily from something that shouldn't have made him tired, it took him a while to respond. “N-Not really...”

“Don't worry, I got you.”

! - ! - !

“Zero?” Lan looked down at the PET, still there was nothing but static, but while he 'd stopped paying attention to it and was watching Megaman, something changed, he couldn't place it though.

Enzan glanced over at Lan who was staring down at the PET. “What is it?” Enzan looked over his shoulder, the PET was the same as before, nothing had changed.

“I don’t know, somethings different now…” Lan looked down at the screen in an inquisitional way, trying to figure it out the difference between this image of static and one before it.

“Are you sure?” Enzan just didn't see it, maybe Lan was imagining things. “Hurry up, we need to get out of this smoke.”

“Zero? I know your in there somewhere.” Lan thought more of it then Enzan did. “Zero...”


It seemed there was, in fact, something there.

As if by some type of trigger the static started to clear away like dust being blow away, revealing rows of continuous ’201102’ in red numbers. They streamed across the screen furiously.

“What….is this?” Enzan asked, looking down at the streaming numbers in awe. What did Lan just do?

“I’m not sure….Zero? Are you there?”

! - ! - !

The room Tadashi was working in was blindingly white just as every other one, completely circular just as he'd read on the map. There were cameras in 7 places surrounding them covering every angle of the room, and there was one lone panel and screen which controlled the manual settings and configurations as well as administrative controls. Other then this, the mainframe was used for one purpose by this facility, converting net navies and other data into the correct format.

They where inside 1 of 2 mainframes on the island, this one was directly above the second. It gave off a strange feeling when walking around inside.

When a step was taken, the white light, which at first seemed to be regular tiles, on the floor cleared away in a water like fashion. Revealing the wires and circuit boards underneath. Not to mention all of the white made this place seem surreal.

“That’s the virus right? What is it doing?” Megaman stood next to Tadashi, this place made him feel like he was in a dream.

“I’m not sure, whatever it is, it’s giving us more time.”

The virus (currently on screen) stopped moving completely, that meant it also stop infecting. The strange program dropped the light sword it was carrying, clinching it's head with it's fleshy hands and cried out as if in pain.

! - ! - !

“Zero.” Lan was sure it was him now, even though he couldn’t see anything past the stream of ’201102’. This had to be it, there was nothing else it could be, why else would his PET act like this.

This had to be it.

A voice, muddled with static replied, the static was to loud that the voice was incoherent.

This was it...

“Lan? What’s going on?” Enzan knew Lan knew more about what was happening the he did, and this was pretty strange.

“I'm not sure but I know it’s a good thing.” Lan always was optimistic... “Look at the door.”

With one loud, unified click, all of the doors had just unlocked.

! - ! - !

“You did it the elevator just unlocked.” Megaman heard the distinct sound, but he was still unable to pry his eyes away from the screen. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.” Tadashi shifted the virus's video feed to a secondary screen while a command prompt came on on the primary. A blurring stream of numbers and letters followed, something Tadashi was amazing able to understand. “Look at this, It’s the virus, it’s changing.” His fingers began moving over the keypad with fibrous strokes, moving hastily. “I still haven’t put the firewall up.” Tadashi shook his head and adjusted his glasses. Even with his time for escape temporarily prolonged with the virus's reprieve. He couldn’t leave now, or else the net would be in really serous trouble.

The virus was starting to spread again, this time infecting every thing it could touch at a slow, but gaining rate. At his rough calculations, he had 1 minutes at the most, he knew he couldn’t do it, but he had to try at lest.

Megaman seemed to lose his focus on Tadashi's task completely, he's growing interested in the virus was now almost hypnotic. He watched the virus closely, he felt it, a pang in his head that made the headache he'd retained since he'd climbed on to this floor grow substantially. He winced and cried out loudly in pain, clinching his head with both hands as if that would some how ease the pain. “Ahggaaaaa!”

Tadashi immediately turned around “Megaman! What's wrong?”

“I don't know.” His voice was strained, saturated with an unfounded pain. “Just...J-Just keep working.”

Tadashi looked at Megaman, then at the screen Megaman was still staring at. The massive virus looked like it was splitting in half or something was being torn out of it by some inviable force, and Megaman was in horrible pain with no cause. This had to be connected. 'Megaman was infected with this virus...' Tadashi realized that what ever part of the '201102 virus' he was still infected with was reacting.

“What's... happening to me?” Megaman got this strange feeling that came with the pain. Some part of that virus was screaming and he seemed to be the only one that could hear it. “I...I have to get in there...”

“What?”

“I have to get in there.” Megaman just barely refrained from screaming, biting down hard on his bottom lip to hold it back.

Why, Tadashi wasn't sure, but Megaman seemed adamant about it, so adamant that he looked as if he'd lose it if he didn't. “Hmm... Let me see then...” Tadashi looked over Megaman examiningly, he was an android, so there had to be some way to connect him to the outside... Where would it be?

The virus began shaking it’s head wildly, trashing around uncontrollably. It let out a loud roar, one that Megaman could hear two voices inside of. The other was only faint, but just loud enough to be heard with in the first.

Tadashi first examined the back of Megaman's neck, “Here, this might just be...” He found what he was looking for just beneath Megaman's hair. There was a cord similar to those used in P.E.T's to connect to other devices. “This it it.”

“I have to get there... I have to get in there.” Megaman repeated almost frantically.

“Hm... If your planning on going in to the mainframe then I don’t know what you expect to find. But you maybe able to buy me some time, but be careful, I'm not... at all sure what effects is going virus might have on you.” Tadashi told him. He wasn't sure what effect the virus having right now. But Megaman could get him some time so he allowed this to happen despite his best instincts.

Tadashi gave a silent sigh and plugged him in.

! - ! - !

“Come on Zero, you can do this!” Lan spoke almost to himself, listening to static clearing away more and more each time the virus cried out. He could hear it on his infected P.E.T, A howling roar of the massive virus mixed with fierce screams of Zero that came through with more clarity every second, both sounded as if they were in pain.

“What’s happening?” Enzan asked in confusion.

“I think... I think Zero’s changing back.” Lan told him hopefully, watching the streaming numbers closely. “Come on Zero!”

“Well he better do it fast, these fires aren't going to get any better…” The smoke was getting thicker, he could hardly breathe as it was. 'Wait... this is a holding room, then the other room must be a incubit room.' “Hold on.” Enzan moved over to the door opposite Lan with quick steps and tried to open it.

It wasn’t moving, something was blocking it from the other side. “Open Damnit!” Enzan held on to the handle and began ramming his shoulder in to it, he pounded and pounded in to it with all of his strength until he his shoulder started to hurt. With a small growl of frustration Enzan released the handle and took a step back, then with a small start for momentum he kicking the door. It seemed to be more effective, he could tell by the way it rattled with every strike. Finally after a few more kicks, he stepped back until he was about to bump in to Lan, then ran at the door full, ramming it with his other shoulder.

The door open so abruptly that he almost lost his balance and fell in to the wall of fire that awaited on the other side. “!” This whole room engulfed in flames from the floor all the way up to the ceiling, more importantly the glass on the capsules were starting to melt. The liquid inside was one of the more flammable chemicals in the facility Enzan had mentioned, if that green liquid caught fire... 'No!' Enzan grabbed a fire extinguisher resting in a case beside the door and swept it across the flames.

He had to stop those capsules from catching on fire.

! -! - !

Megaman looked around in awe at the damage done to his new setting, this mainframe looked as if it was far beyond saving, most of it now an oddly colored red. The area that were red was behind him, the other half still uninfected was blocked off by the massive virus, leaving only a few feet of neutral space.

The virus was howling fiercely, it was so much louder now that he was up close, by now the other voice could be heard clearly with in it, both resonating with equal volume. 'This is it... this is the virus?' Megaman felt like he was a severed limb, as if he was apart of that mass and in desperate need to be reconnected. 'No...No, no, no, no, no!'

That couldn't be right! He had to ignore that feeling!

'Just don't listen to it... besides, I have to slow this thing down.' What was most noticeable to Megaman was a transparent, blood red image of something, a Navi like form trying to force it’s way out appeared from the virus’s body, but it was being pulled back in.

“That must be him…” Megaman said to himself as if trying to confirm his own thought, 'Alright Lan ...' He lifted the buster on his arm and began charging, illuminating the barrel with gathering energy, 'I hope I'm right about this.' Pushing all doubt aside he fired a shot at the Virus, launching the blue energy mass just as the Navi like red form tried to pry itself free again.

The shot struck the Virus's chest and erupted in a small explosion of discharging blue power. Mutated flesh burst from the massive body's torso and the form fell from it's chest with the last needed push. With a human out cry the body fell from the Virus.

Megaman sprang in to the air, kicking off the hard body of the virus to boost himself higher. He dived outward, catching the form in his arms and landed safely on the ground.

There was a small reprieve before the red form seemed to take some details, before long it was an actual Navi, it was Zero. “You, you must be Megaman…” Zero blinked to clear his vision, taking deep, starved breathes as if he'd been suffocated.

Megaman rubbed his head lighting, noticing the feeling of connection with the virus was fleeting rapidly. “Yeah, and you must be Zero.”

Zero slowly lifted his arm into the air and pointed at something over Megaman's shoulder. “You…may want to move.”

'!' Without hesitation Megaman rolled the side, and with perfect timing as soon as he moved out of the way, Zero’s sword landed blade first in to the ground.

“Heh heh.” With an amused smile Zero held on to the hilt of the blade and pulled himself on to his feet, it took a second but he seemed to catch his breath. After that he felt as good as ever... and just as the feeling peeked he finally noticed that he didn’t have his armor on.

In fact he didn’t have anything on, “What the hell!” With an annoyed and angered sigh he looked towards the virus, covered in red. “You stole my armor Damnit!” He shouted, shaking his fist threateningly at it.

'...' Megaman could only laugh at Zero's reaction.

Zero turned to Megaman and glared at him fiercely. “This is not funny!” Zero said angrily, expecting some type of reply from the other Navi.

Megaman only pointed, indicating something of importance was behind.

“Wha-” Zero turned around just in time to see a large hand coming down on him, “!” Zero reflexively dived out of the way, but unfortunately with his hasted he hadn't got of to the best start and landed face first painfully on the ground.

“Are you ok?” Megaman laughed harder, knowing the fall wouldn’t have been so painful if Zero had some clothes on.

Zero ignored him with another glare, and focused on getting his armor back. 'Damnit thing...'

Zero closed his eyes and concentrated as best he could with Megaman standing beside him laughing. It wasn't clear what he was doing, but whatever it was was causing the red metal like coating to radiate. With a flash the coating was stripped from the virus and shot into the air as if all one entity, it came down on Zero in one shining beam of red light and an uproar of dust.

When it all cleared away, Zero stood was fully clothed in his armor.

! - ! - !

“Zero!”

“Lan!” Zero became filled with excitement as soon as he heard Lan's voice. “What are you doing here?”

“...I still haven’t figured that out.”

Lan disconnected his PET from the door, he still remained connected with Zero through his wireless abilities. With a small cough Lan looked behind him in to the room Enzan had went in to, feeling his eyes begin to burn from the smoke. “Enzan! Let’s go!” Lan called, peering his head in to the room.

Boom...

A loud explosion erupted from someplace above him, shaking the ground violently and throwing Lan disorientedly to the ground inside of the room. “Ahaaaaaaa!” He flinched as the doorway caved in, sending a flaming wreak from above tumbling down, blocking their exit and nearly smashing him in the process.

“Oh man, this is bad.” Lan stumbled to his feet, noticing the connection with Zero had faded completely leaving nothing but static. 'But how!'

“Lan? Are you ok?” Enzan trudged threw the flames with a fire extinguisher in hand. It didn’t do much for the fires on the ground, but it did by them some time with the chemicals in the capsules. The extinguisher was empty now, this fire was just to much for it to handle, and he was about to toss it aside when he saw the door was blocked.

The room filled with the black haze of trapped smoke and red emergency light, leaving little air or visibility.

“I’m fine, but this smoke isn’t helping. Is there another way out of here?” Lan asked with a desperate hope, he flinched with a startled cry when he heard the fire near the door flare up.

“Right here.” Enzan drew his arm back and threw the fire extinguisher through the glass separating this room from the holding room next to it. “Let’s go!” Enzan forcefully grabbed Lan by his arm and climbed over in to the holding room, Lan barely followed behind.

The two quickly headed out the unobstructed door in this room back in to the hallway, just making it when they heard another ear deafening explosion. The ground did more the quake, it seemed to jumping up and down surreally, making it almost imposable to keep balance.


And things got worse... “Lan!” Enzan quickly pushed Lan down just as the right wall exploded, sending a wall of flames and a outburst of metal debris flying outward.

That was just the first capsule, and the others would go soon after. More damage was done to the levels above then to this floor...

'...W-what was that!' Lan's eyes shot open, he didn't even know he'd closed them.

He found himself laying face down with Enzan laying on top of him, a thick blanket of burning steel and concrete on top of him, he was protecting him from harm. “Enzan...” Lan lifted hims hands to the boy's shoulders and began shaking. “Enzan.”

It was Enzan was knocked unconscious and he looked as if he wasn't going to get back up, Lan knew that already when he didn’t immediately get up.

“No... Enzan!” Lan didn’t have time to try and wake him up, not that he really could.

Lan slowly climbed on to his feet, holding Enzan on his back. 'He's...so heavy...' “Ahhaaa!” Another explosion followed unexpectedly after the first, sending a wall of fire down what was left of the hallway at speeds that Lan knew he couldn’t out run.

But he didn’t have to, all the remain capsules went off at once, making the quaking floor drop completely. The next thing Lan knew, he was falling into a cloud of black smoke and darkness. “AaaaaaaaHHHHH!”

! - ! - !

“Megaman you’ll have to fight this thing some other time, We have to go now!” Megaman heard Tadashi speaking from outside.

“What’s happening?” Megaman jumped back as a the lower mass of flesh of virus that splurged outward like water began expanding.

“This place is going up in flames.” With the '201102 virus' infecting nearly every system in the building, including the camera's, he could tell what was happening. “Don’t worry about me, you get out of here!” Zero said, two pairs of wings appeared on his back, one a shinning white, one a deep black.

Megaman wasn't sure what Zero was doing but he was sure it involved escape. “Alright.” Megaman nodded, just as Tadashi plugged him out.