Sithking Zero: Code Lyoko, Megaman/Rockman.exe, and any and all things, ideas, and companies affiliated are not mine. Cadence, the Replicons, and the plot are mine. Sue and I will sic Bass on you.

Well, I figured it’d be a good way to hone my skills as a writer if I wrote dramatic tension. So here’s some now!

Oh, and to all of you who thought, “Hey, maybe he’ll settle that cliffhanger,” I laugh at you.

            A creature scuttled across the vast plains and deserts of the undernet. It had a spiked, disc shaped head, attached to the cylindrical torso by what looked like a ball and socket joint. Its four, Krabe-like legs scuttled back and forth rapidly, scurrying it across the desert quickly away from its foe. Its arms melted into silver metal, before suddenly becoming two sub-machine guns.

Swiveling its torso, it began firing wildly at the incoming figure, hoping to (by some sort of divine miracle) destroy the swift warrior that had destroyed every member of the group so far.

The figure brought its arms up into a cross formation across his chest, and the bullets ricocheted off harmlessly.

“…heh.” The male grinned, thinking that this would be easy.

And the male was quite right.

The figure dispelled the shield with one hand, turning it first into a wire-frame shield, than it vanished altogether.

Next, he transformed his arm into a sword.

Now, he simply disappeared.

The creature swiveled back and forth, scanning everywhere for his foe.

Left, right, up, down, the figure was nowhere to be seen.

Cautiously, the creature inhaled deeply, holding its breath.

This wasn’t, however, because he was scared (though he was), and not because he wasn’t trying to make noise (which he wasn’t.)

Rather, this was because the act of inhalation pumped the liquid cyber-metal through his digital veins, passing through damaged portions of his body, and filling and healing the gaps. Thusly, Replicons were programs that could heal themselves almost instantly, a very rare trait among programs throughout the world. Most viruses and net navis recovered slowly, like humans, unless special “Recovery Chips,” were used to speed up the process.

The pressure of his inhaled breath did exactly what it was supposed to, and liquid metal flowed from his wounds, filling them in perfectly. Within a second, his wounds were healed completely.

The Replicon, sighing with relief, had a sudden thought:

The mission is priority one. Complete the mission. Ensure mission success.

‘Yes, but-’ he thought, before the voice in his head cut in.

The Replicon paused, for a mere moment, before his chest split in two, and opened like a pair of doors. Soundlessly, he pulled the contents of his chest out.

The object was a perfect sphere of pure energy. Pulsating slightly and glowing blue, the ball gave off a bright ambient glow.

He raised his arm up to his face, saying, “All clear, this part of the Project is se-”

He stopped speaking, feeling icy pain suddenly lance through his chest.

He looked down, past the orb of pulsating light.

It wasn’t good. Unless one was to count a red-tinged blade, thrumming with power, protruding from your chest as “Good.”

Then, the blade sliced upwards, bisecting the creature’s head and killing it instantly.

The figure behind him grimaced, his eyes hidden behind the black visor he wore constantly.

A window in the air opened up behind him, and a human face appeared.

The look on the face was cold, and somewhat uncaring, and had a level of maturity not usually seen in thirteen-year-old males. His hair was white on top, but, as some had pointed out at times, “looks like his black hair got partially covered by an eggshell.”

However, those who knew the boy knew that his hair was not something to laugh at. The boy was a prodigy, and was the youngest net official ever.

“Protoman, did you catch the criminal?”

“He gave me no choice, Chaud, sir. I was forced to delete him.”

“Did you get the memory chip?”

“There was none, sir.”

“Any battlechip, then?”

“No, sir. None.”

“That’s weird…”

“He did leave something behind, some sort of energy orb. I’m scanning it now.”

Protoman.EXE tapped two fingers to the side of his helmet. Small, multi-colored flecks of light sped across his visor for a moment, analyzing the ball of condensed power.

“It seems to be a condensed orb of energy. Nothing more, sir.”

“Good. Send it to the PET, I’d like to study it some more. Once you’ve done that, survey the area for any clues as to his identity.”

“Roger, sir.”

The blue ball of light vanished, as well as the image of Chaud Blaze’s head.

Protoman looked around. He was about five foot eleven, meaning he was a little shorter then our finned hero (and that DOES NOT COUNT FINS). He wore a black jumpsuit with a Grey diamond on the front. Starting at about chest-height, a red triangle of hard, rigid material began, extending out over the shoulders. His boots were red with gold trim, as were his gloves. On the backs of his gloves and his chest was his crest: a jagged line separating two halves of the circle: one white, one black.

From the back of his helmet, a long, knee-length, pure white ponytail of hair reached back, nice and thin, not a giant target, but not threadbare. It was perfect.

The helmet, under which the hair came from, was a red, slightly egg-shaped object. There were two stripes of white that swept back from where the eyes would be underneath the black visor. Two dimples in the sides served as ears. As a finishing touch, a foot-long spine stood straight up from the middle-front area of the helmet.

He transformed his blade back into a normal arm, sighing dejectedly.

“ANOTHER of these stupid missions… That makes thirteen of these things I’ve killed in the last month alone. What the hell-”

It was at this moment that he was interrupted by a brilliant flash of light.

He instantly transformed his arm into a blade of red power, and crossed his arms over his chest protectively. After a moment, a red, curved circular shield with a silver rim encompassed his entire front side.

“If I had wanted to destroy you, I would have done so long ago and with far more stealth, Protoman. I need to talk to you.”

Protoman lowered his shield. Carefully he looked at the figure before him.

A five-foot five figure stood before him. The upper part of its body was garbed in a black jumpsuit with what looked like wooden gauntlets. The lower half of the body was garbed in a golden belt (containing the navi symbol: A green circle with a black rectangle on top.) and what have been called time and again as white “Harem pants.” That is to say, the type of pants that are often worn in the movie “Aladin.”

Now, her helmet was rather remarkable. Slightly egg-shaped, the golden helmet had two long, thin, curving ornamental horns sweeping back and downwards from above the eyes. The back of the helmet had an uprising horn. None of this was, however, truly what made her who she was.

Hovering slightly away from her backside were two massive, diamond-shaped… energy plates. They were curved enough that if she wanted them to, they would-and could- orbit around her continuously without touching her body.

Which, Protoman knew, was part of her signature attack.

Giving a slight smile and banishing away his shield, he stood up straight, but kept his sword at ready attention.

“So, what brings you here, Serenade, King of the Undernet?”

She sighed slightly. “Well, primarily, the beings which you have been annihilating quite effectively. I know where they come from, and who leads them. Not to mention where they’re coming from. What I want is for you to stop them at the source.”

Protoman lowered his blade cautiously. “And why can’t you just do this yourself, may I ask? You are, after all, KING OF THE UNDERNET, the toughest section of the cyberworld, am I correct in saying this?”

“You are.” She responded heavily. “But I can’t do this for three reasons.

“Reason one:” she started, “I am King. That means I have a lot of work to do. I can’t go off on a hunt, because things would degenerate into chaos.”

“Reason Two: The next ranking starts soon. Meaning that I have to supervise-and possibly destroy- all the freaks who want my job.”

“And number three is…?” Protoman asked, already bored with the conversation.

“Those things have ALREADY overrun the Secret Net! I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d say the damn things were reproducing down there. I’ve practically got my hands full trying to kill them all and maintain order.”

“Couldn’t you just-”

“NO, I will not act like… HIM, firing energy blasts everywhere. The last time he did that, I had to rebuild the entire secret net from scratch.” Protoman caught something muttered under Serenade’s breath, which sounded amazingly like “Stupid earthbreakers…”

“What?” he asked.

“NOTHING!!!”

She settled down a bit, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a compressed file. “Here. Share this with your netop. This contains everything you need to know about who you’re dealing with. You’re going to need every byte of it.”

Protoman reached out, taking the file and glancing over it. His eyes widened in shock and horror underneath his visor. “That’s… No. King Serenade, that’s really… No. If this is a joke…” he turned, trying to reason with the King of the Undernet.

But it was too late.

She was gone.

Sithking Zero: Well, My evilness has been compounded. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!

Well, Protoman’s here, as is Chaud, and Serenade. For those of you who don’t know, Protoman and Chaud are characters who are Megaman and Lan’s rivals in the Megaman Battle network games. And Serenade is a secret boss you fight just before Bass GS in Megaman Battle network 3. This is AFTER you fight Alpha, collected every standard chip in the game, and beaten Darkman and Yamato/Japanman.

And yes, even though I called Serenade “KING of the Undernet,” even though she’s a girl (In Japan, Serenade’s a girl. In America, She’s a guy. If you ever saw her official picture, she’s kinda androgynous, but I think she leans towards the female side). The reason that I called her king is because I imagine that it’s just a job. There’s a title for “Queen” but it isn’t as high placed as king. So, when Protoman calls her “King,” it’s more of a Job title, like Professor, or Doctor, then anything else.

Except cooler, and doctors can’t order people executed. On second thought, I don’t want to know.

Oh, and there is an art challenge on my Deviantart page: Draw the best Crossover fight possible!

Please Read, Review, and submit entries to the contest!