A computer's keys are clacking at a fast speed, with the owner's eyes shifting glances between the various sets of data. "..."
[The time is now 5:30AM.] A digitized male voice said in a monotone from a blue and grey-colored Link PET, which had caused the programmer, a woman with her hair that was as dark as the midnight sky in a short, messy ponytail, to scoff at the voice in irritation.
"Shut up, Sub. I'm trying to work, here." She grumbled, continuing her work as she took a sip of her coffee. She had a pair of grey pajama pants on and a simple blue t-shirt that could be barely be seen from the faint light of her desktop, seemingly ready to go to bed but her current task seemed more important than sleep. Leaning her body towards her computer more as she was typing and reading to double check her work, she had another sip of her drink while it was hot.
[I'm concerned about your wellbeing, Milady Koryu.] Sub states, keeping his arms close to his body and behind his back, similar to a butler. He is a NormalNavi with a blue and grey color scheme much like the Link PET he is housed in. He has a saddened expression with half-circle eyes depicting such.
If you were really concerned, you'd shut up and let me finish at my own pace... She thought, keeping her negativity to herself.
Meanwhile inside a secure part of cyberspace, there was a female navi also inputting and analyzing data of her own, albeit in a more chipper attitude than the human. She had light blue eyes, slate blue armor that included knee-length boots, gauntlets with "fingerless" gloves that had the fingers resemble her darker "bodysuit" in color which was similar to Sub's blue, and a short skirt with a black stripe resembling one on a karate gi linking into a black belt with her dark blue-ringed mark of a black v-shaped stripe against the same light blue as her body as a buckle of sorts with more of the v-shape on her helmet, ear modules, and boots as silver hair was loose under her helmet.
Watching over her work were not only two male scientists, one with glasses, through monitors, but a tall, golden eagle-like male navi was at a short distance. He had golden armor that resembled an eagle with large wings to match and the beak open on his head to reveal his face and green eyes, his chest and ear module mark bearing a small, golden feather similar to his own, and had a silver sword sheathed on his side.
One scientist groaned loudly as the other, bespectacled one turns to him. "What's with you?"
"I'm tired of all of this testing, is what's wrong." He replies. "I thought we worked out all of the kinks with these two for at least a week, so I'd like to watch them do their real job, already."
"We have to make sure they're stable to work outside this environment, and we have to especially make sure they can work through the future distractions they're going to face. After all, the girl has no offensive abilities so if she's hit, the mission's over. And he can't analyze data, so he wouldn't be able to finish the job even if he survives..." The glasses-wearing scientist says which got the eagle-like navi irritated as he growled in the back of his throat. We're just playthings to these humans...
"Sometimes I wonder what they talk about when they mean by, "our real job." But I'm having fun here, aren't you, brother? I don't like it when you go to places alone..." The female navi says, upsetting her "brother" again. He clutched at the hilt of his sword as his hand trembled from anger.
"They're using that personality of yours against me, Nexus! I can't leave much less imagine you on your own on the internet!" He shouted, getting the scientists' attention.
One of them begins to activate a recording program. "There he goes, again. It's good for research, but still..." He complains.
"I wouldn't want to go because I would be by myself! I'd go anywhere with you to protect me, Fate!" Just as Nexus shouts that, a sudden breach in the firewall occurred, shocking the four of them as the navis were covered in the smoke from the explosion.
"Intruder alert! They breached all five layers of the firewall instantaneously!" The glasses-wearing scientist shouted.
The navis coughed from the smoke until it cleared enough to reveal that their attack was a slender Wood-type female navi with pink flower petals flowing downward for hair, bamboo armor over her forearms and legs, and her chest icon that had a cherry blossom flower on it. She had a small smile on her face while Fate unsheathed his weapon to point it at her direction.
"Identify yourself, intruder!" He shouts as he gets into a fighting stance while Nexus begins to repair the firewall. "Stop that, Nexus! She'll just break it again!"
"I'm trying to contain the damage, not her!" She replied with light panic in her voice.
The stranger shakes her head in disappointment. "And here I am trying to free you two but you ignore me..." She says, catching their attention. "Good evening, everyone. My name is Kagura, leader of the Spring unit of the organization known as the Four Seasons. We wish to have the girl's power for our own purposes, but I'm sure you won't accept that, will you sir?" She says as Fate gets into a charge towards her.
She easily dodged his attack as she summoned bamboo lances from the ground to attack him but he either avoids them or slashes at them if they get too close. "I'm not going to let Nexus be used by you! We don't need your help!" He shouted, trying to slash at her some more.
Nexus meanwhile was trying to get the recording program to shut off in order to distract the scientists from the fight. I don't want them to see this, because I wonder if we can take this chance to leave without this crazy navi... She thought to herself as Fate was fighting.
"It seems your sister is ignoring you for her precious data. I promise that no harm will come to her if she cooperates with us." Kagura arrogantly claims, causing Fate to bear his teeth.
"That's a lie." Nexus interrupted while she was still computing, getting their attention as her brother calmed down. Nexus...?
Finishing her sequence to shut down the recording program, she then sets the absolute lock on the outside terminals with a determined glare at Kagura which caused the scientists to panic as they tried in vain to undo it but their machines wouldn't reboot.
"Nexus locked us out of our terminals in addition to shutting the recording off! Why are those two rebelling against us now when they would listen to us just fine before?!"
"This is a secret area because as I've read before, navis created to function without an Operator were forbidden after the failure with Forte, so the fact that you know this means you're up to no good. And even if you force me to leave which I won't allow, I can lock you out of everything your organization has like I did just now with those humans' terminals. You don't have incentives for me to join." She said sternly.
Kagura was surprised at her sudden actions, briefly frightened by the possibilities that she stated, but then gets an idea as she materializes a Bamboo Lance near her and grabbing it as it turns into a sword. "Perhaps, but I can certainly get rid of you..." She says darkly, slashing at her direction.
Nexus shielded her face but Fate screamed as his arm was cut off and dematerialized, dropping his sword as his stump began to fragment, relaxing her arms from the fear. "Brother...!"
He grunted in pain before saying, "You can't die, Nexus... I won't let her delete you!" He shouted with great determination as Nexus was crying, before being interrupted by having his other arm being sliced off as he screamed in pain again.
"You can say that all you like, but it seems that much like your namesake, you will end here, Fate." Kagura says, resting her sword on his neck with a demeaning smirk on her face.
Nexus grabbed at Fate's shoulders and could barely muster the courage to speak. "Don't do this for me…" She then stopped when she saw a vision of the internet and all of its traffic filled with navis and their human partners traveling from every direction from Fate's perspective. [If only Nexus could see this right now... I wonder what she would think of this.] "Fate..."
Without her knowledge, her hands started to glow as she looked into his memories as he began to scream in pain and Kagura was confused on what was going on between the two. This wasn't we expected at all! What is she doing to him?!
[Explain this to me, humans! Why can't you let me leave this place?!] Fate shouts to the scientists when he was in a special container and he looks to a different one containing Nexus' data as it was being built.
[We cannot allow a powerful navi like you to wander the internet and risk destroying it like that Forte. Your new sister here, Nexus, cannot function long without you in the vicinity, so do keep that in mind as you train.] One of them explains as Fate growls.
I'm the reason Fate can't leave and be free like he wants...? And that's why he's dying for my sake... Nexus thought as she was lost in his memories while more of her body began to glow. "That's not fair!"
As she shouted that, a bright flash enveloped the terminal and while Kagura shields her eyes, Nexus and Fate somehow exited the terminal. When the villain came to her senses, the only thing remaining was Fate's sword but it quickly dissipated.
Irritated in her failure, she exited the terminal and the system control was given back to the scientists as they managed to activate their computers. "The navis are all gone! But that's impossible!"
The two then spent the night attempting to track where the sibling navis could be but to no avail for some reason.
Nexus and Fate seemingly traveled through the internet, stopping at Koryu's computer and PET. Koryu finally managed to get sleep as the sun was rising but Sub was arranging something on his own in her PET.
"Milady will be pleased when I have organized her schedule right down the millisecond." He said in his usual, emotionless tone. However he was interrupted when someone accessed the PET's terminal as he turned toward them.
"Who are you?!" He said, increasing his volume rather than having emotion in his voice.
The intruder was a fragmenting mix of gold and blue as it charged toward his direction, changing one hand into a metallic blade, and before Sub knew it, his face was grabbed by the intruder as he was actually screaming in pain and was then sliced in half by them before being deleted.
The fighter's sword changed back into their hand as their form began to stabilize. It was then revealed that Nexus absorbed her brother's data and now has small, golden-feathered wings on her back and her mark has combined her previous and Fate's design to now have a golden wing above the v-shaped stripe and the light blue background with a golden ring around it. "K-Kor-yu...!" She managed to sputter out from the overload before she collapsed and went into sleep mode. The human heard the ruckus somewhat as she gets up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with a yawn.
"Sub...? Is it time for my appointment...?"
Not hearing a response, Koryu now gets concerned as she slowly gets to her PET, groaning as she sees the time. "Sub? Why did you get me up so...?" She stops herself when she sees that Sub isn't in the device, gripping tighter on her PET in worry. Sub can't leave without my permission, but he didn't let an alarm off so something must've taken him out before he could've done such...
She then plugs her PET into her computer and begins to scan it. She was surprised when she not only discovered that Sub was outright deleted but that she found an unknown packet of data, beginning to scan it for its information but was locked out of such options. "Did Sub get deleted by this thing...? Where did it come from, anyway?"
Koryu begins to compute commands to at least see the packet's appearance and saw Nexus' sleeping face with fragmenting data surrounding her body again. "A girl...? And what's with all of this data around her? Is she damaged?"
The alarm on her PET went off and she sees Sub's meticulous schedule flashing a time block several hours from now, sighing from disappointed relief. He was always one for the details. I might actually miss that now that he's gone.
Getting out of that interface, she then takes a shower before preparing for her meeting, putting on a green t-shirt with red lining, red stub earrings, a blank Battle Chip hanging on her neck like a necklace, and blue jeans under a lab coat.
Locking up her house, she gets out and starts her moped as she grabbed her helmet, driving to the Net Police station. When she arrived, she sees a man with short, spiky dark red hair. He was wearing a dark grey long-sleeved shirt that had a volcano-like navi mark on his chest pocket and black pants as he waved cheerfully at Koryu.
"How is my chip coming along?" He asks as she zooms up to him.
Turning off the vehicle's engine, she lifts the face shield and pulls a case out of her lab coat pocket to reveal the Battle Chip, the picture depicting a volcano bursting fireballs in all directions (Volcano Shotgun) as it surprised the man when he takes the chip out. "It's already finished." She says tiredly, yawning afterwards while he was looking it over.
"I shouldn't have expected anything less from you! I'll transfer the payment to your account by today. Your service is well appreciated by the Net Police." He said excitedly, saluting jokingly.
She didn't respond, concerned about something as she stares at the ground, with the officer relaxing. "Hey, uh, Koryu?"
"It's nothing you should be concerned about, Officer Ember." She directly said, leaving him in awe. "I have to get back to work, so I'll be going now." She then started her moped's engine.
"Right, I'll get your payment in soon, then." He says nervously to her.
With a nod, she puts her helmet's face shield back down and rides back to her house.
She sits down and moves Nexus to her computer, but at soon as the transfer is completed, the navi's eyes open to reveal that they have turned a bright green as her armor changed to gold and her wings become larger to resemble her supposed missing brother's pair.
"Unhand me, human!" "She" shouts with Fate's voice as she sweeps the cursor away from him.
Koryu raised an eyebrow at the sudden change, scratching at her chin briefly before pulling out her PET. "So, uh, I'm guessing you won't go down quietly?"
"Of course not! I demand you tell me where you hid my sister!" Fate shouted, trying to summon his sword, but he couldn't. "And where is my weapon?!"
Koryu sighed, and she soon goes through her PET chip holster and grabs a Battle Chip depicting a right-handed glove that had a purple aura around it. "Battle Chip: Phantom Glove, Slot In." She tiredly proclaimed, inserting the chip into her PET.
When the chip was activated, the glove-like program was floating in the air and occasionally moving its fingers in a slow, relaxed manner as Fate was waiting to see what it would do in anxiety. "I've never seen this virus on the internet, so you must've created it yourself, fiend!"
With that actually setting off a nerve (though she wouldn't show/admit that to him as she twitched her fingers away from the monitor), Koryu simply pulled out the stylus of her PET and used it to tap the screen, causing the program to glow in the same aura as depicted on its chip, as if it were activated fully and quickly rushed at Fate who tried to shield himself with his wings but failed as his wings were too weak to do anything, becoming slowly getting crushed in its grip.
"I suggest that you shut up for a second while I figure out what's wrong with you, okay?" She grumbled, failing to intimidate Fate as he got irritated.
"There is nothing wrong with me! You're the one that decided to imprison me!" He said as he was struggling to push at the glove but it started to glow white instead of its original aura as Koryu sees that its HP is mysteriously depleting in confused shock.
When the counter went to zero, the program was deleted and Fate fell down, revealing that his right hand had the same kind of white glove over it, giving Koryu an idea as she raised an eyebrow.
She pulled out a different Battle Chip, this time with a left-handed glove with its index finger extended to shoot energy from it. "Battle Chip: Specter Glove, Slot In."
This time the glove program was moving its fingers quickly and randomly as it held still before Koryu tapped the chip on her touch screen again as well as touching an "auto-defense" area of her PET's OS.
When this one activated, it moved into a shooting motion with its fingers and shot purple-colored bullets that flowed in erratic paths that Fate dodged most of, before charging towards the giant glove.
He placed his left hand on it to balance himself as he prepared to perform a series of punches with his right fist as it glowed white again but unexpectedly fell over when the virus' HP depleted with now his left hand gloved. Koryu smirked at this but he was confused as he was getting up.
"Now it's time for the final Chip, whoever is in there. You can't stop my best creation! Battle Chip: Dueling Gloves, Slot In!"
This time, a pair of white-gloved fists were materialized and quickly launched at Fate as he tried to outrun them. "I am Fate, one half of the Gemini Project! And I will protect..."
He interrupts himself when he looks down at his arms and sees that they are slender and armored not unlike his sister was but in his golden color with the white gloves over his hands. "The sister I became...?"
He stops in his tracks which gave the right-handed glove time to grab him and just as it was about to start crushing him, Koryu disabled the auto-defense function. He was still captured but not being harmed as he was trying to process his revelation.
After a long moment of silence, he asks, "You saw this the whole time, didn't you?"
Koryu sighs, finally being able to relax. "I really do want to help you out, Fate. You just weren't seeing your problem right away so I had to do that. And I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, I also wanted to see your...erm, whosever abilities those are, for myself."
She then commands the gloves to disappear with another tap of her stylus. "If you're still wondering what happened to the other programs and why you have gloves on her hands..." She pauses, grumbling. Man, this is confusing. "You absorbed them."
"I think that's her powers." Fate says, thinking back. "I last remember her grabbing at my shoulders and it was painful for some reason before I was knocked out."
The human sits up in curiosity. "It's like you two merged completely if you have her body but you've still maintained your mind. And what was that Gemini Project you just mentioned?"
Fate shook his head, growing distressed. "The Gemini Project: an underground project done by some humans in the government that wanted to make more solo navis despite the risks."
He then generated a screen that had both him and Nexus on it to show their original appearances and information. "So they created two navis with half the capability of a navi. I was a purely combat navi while my sister was obsessed with archiving data, and despite the fact that I could travel the internet at my own desire, I was still handcuffed to the scientists because without me in a certain distance, Nexus would begin to die."
Koryu was looking over the schematics, noticing something as he turned away from her. "I'm guessing that this "Adapt Program" was what Nexus accidentally did to you two? Amazing..."
"My core is about to absorb hers..." Fate nearly whispered, with Koryu raising an eyebrow to it before he turned around sharply, surprising her.
"I was the original personality! So I have higher priority but I don't want to her to die! You've got to do something, human!" He then shouts, to which Koryu slots in a Thunder Battle Chip to finally knock him out.
Koryu shakes her head. "So I did, and we really need to get manners into whoever's left in there." She sighs afterwards as she starts working.