Forte & Serenade: The Legendary Battle Artists: Ryo Takamisaki Publication: Shogakukan ISBN: none Where to Buy: This was a free mini manga included with the September 2003 issue of CoroCoro. Characters Included: Forte, Dr. Cossack, Yuuichirou Hikari, Serenade, Rockman, Kero Midorikawa, Toadman, Meijin Eguchi, Shun Basic Storyline (Summary written by Suraida-chan): This is a manga story that is about of how Forte met Serenade. The story starts off with a quick review of Forte's life thus far from the Forte side story: when he was first created, when he caused trouble in the Science Labs, Cossack's talk with Forte (Cossack calls Forte his "dear little son." It's so cute!), Forte receiving his scar and the day he left (in this version, Forte actually coughs up blood when receiving the slash across his chest). The next scene shows where the side story left off. Forte had traveled to Ura-Internet and had been fighting navis and viruses to stay alive. After a few slashes, he pretty much killed off everyone who came to fight him, except for one navi, who's just on the verge of dying. Forte steps on the navi's head, and then asks him of the "Ruler of Ura." The navi is shocked that Forte wanted to fight her, after a little talking, Forte became impatient and crushes the navi's head with his foot and sets off to find the ruler himself. Then a voice talks from behind him, and lo and behold, Serenade appears before him, saving Forte the trouble. Forte is happy to finally meet Serenade and wastes no time to dispose her. As Forte threw punches, Serenade dodges every one of them effortlessly. When Forte powers up an energy blast and throws it at Serenade, she uses her Sonic Boom to send it back and Forte receives a hard hit from his own attack. Forte comes out from the blaze of fire, saying that he isn't going to give up yet. Serenade, however, wanted to show him something, saying that she has a message from someone he knew. From her hand, she shows a hologram image of who else but Forte's creator, Dr. Cossack! Forte was utterly shocked. As the message is displayed to Forte, Cossack, with tears in his eyes, then explains why he wasn't there to help Forte: when the scientists claimed that Forte was the cause of the Proto's malfunction, the net police came and took Cossack into custody, while the security navis went over to delete Forte. He ends the message that he was sad that Forte may have been deleted while he was taken into custody, and hopes that Forte will rejoin Cossack soon, if he was still alive. The message hologram then became a small sphere of light. Serenade explains that this is Forte's ticket to plugging out of the internet and rejoining Cossack. Forte, still in a daze, then slowly crawls to Serenade, and then grabbing her hand with the sphere. Serenade smiles, and says, "Well, plug-out....," Forte, however, refuses, and crushes Serenade's hand and the sphere. Now that he's grabbed her, Forte can hit her at a close range. He powers up an earthbreaker and throws it at Serenade. After a huge bright blast, Forte sees that he had narrowly missed her again, and he received the blast, having his left side being blown off completely, and starts falling. As he falls, he says that he'll one day win and receive her power, and falls into the darkness. The second side story is a 4 page story that Takamisaki-san could not fit into the normal storyline in the September Coro Coro issue. This story takes place during the events in the September issue story. This 4 page story includes character appearances of Dr. Hikari, Meijin, Kero and the first and only appearance of Toadman. Basically, Yuuichirou is trying to create a new kind of PET, but he becomes frustrated when all the ideas that he has doesn't work. Then one of the scientists show Yuuichirou events of what's happening so far, and he sees Rockman (in Bug Style). As he saw Bug Style Rockman there, the computer hi-lights some key points on Rockman, and Yuuichirou had then figured out how to make the new pet. (( - Samples from Forte & Serenade: The Legendary Battle - )) If you have the chance, I highly reccommend these mangas for any Rockman.exe fan! The Rockman.exe and Battle Story mangas are copyrighted by Shogakukan. Please support the artists and buy their mangas.