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terratasha: Holy Panel! I think that's the first time I've gotten that response from anyone! I'm going to log this in my save file. XD
Guest: Thanks! 'Preciate the comment!
"PIXEL!" Megaman yelled as the magenta navi staggered back. He would have tried to get closer but the ground around her was beginning to shake as she continued to scream. The Gregar/Falzer mixed Beast Out was beginning to bug, badly. Green armor became red as red wings began to change both form and color. Instead of the bird like appearance, they turned into a deep black dragon like appearance. Dark flames cut of the blue navi from getting to his daughter. However, as he managed to get a look at them, he couldn't help but parallel them to the flames of Nebula Gray.
'That's one hell of a dark soul she's got...' Dark Hub said, amazed. He knew she had been trying to use a lot of energy, but seeing it all unleashed now was actually a little surreal for the dark human spirit.
'What! A dark soul?' Hub responded back quickly. But Pixel or Stream didn't have dark souls. At least...they hadn't shown in. Come to think of it, he nor Roll had thought to check. Up until Pixel's Beast Out, they thought all the kids had inherited were their weapons and even they had been modified to different specs. It just hadn't occur to him that perhaps his daughter and son would have also gotten the Dark Power abilities as well.
Dark Hub on the other hand, seemed almost shocked at his lighter half, 'What? You honestly didn't think that your little Pixel was immune for darkness. Both you and that pink navi have dark souls! You were practically asking for this. Out of everything, this should've been a complete given! However, ignorance aside...this dark soul...'
'What? What!" Hub barked. Normally he would have ignored Dark Hub and just gone to get his Dark Power levels lowered again, but currently the dark soul seemed like the best possible help for his daughter at this state.
'I'm not sure if I like this soul or not. It feels...weird.' The dark spirit confessed.
'Oh so what, you can just feel dark souls now?'
'Dark souls activate other dark souls. That's the way it goes. I thought you realized that by now. Still, we're in such a close proximity that I can guess at least a couple of things. And...as much as it pains me to say this, we may both need to be awake to fight this.'
'Oh, like I'm just going to believe you and hand over my body to you!'
'Look!' Dark Hub growled. So this was what it felt like to work with someone you hated. Wow, how was he not deleted by now? 'I am aware that you have no reason to trust me. But even you can see that something is wrong here. That dark soul isn't average. It not only hasn't been picked up by either me or Dark Roll in five years! And to make matters worse, I think it's somehow managed to bond to your daughter's Beast Out!'
'And how pray tell do you happen to figure that out?' The lighter Hikari asked sarcastically, beginning to become even more agitated about what was going on.
'If you take a few seconds to look in front of you, you'd understand. By the way, duck.' Dark Hub instructed.
The blue navi quickly followed the order as a claw raked the very air he was just in. As Megaman bounded away from the attack he was finally able to get a look at his daughter, "Pixel..."
'Pixel' was now in a completely different from. The similarities of Gregar was now gone. The wolf like armor had been replaced with a much more draconic look. Her green eyes had converted to a deep red. Armor had turned shades of pitch black and red and the now Dragon-like Beast Out was hovering in the air before them. The female navi wore a sick smile as the mouth guard deactivated, "So, this is the famous Megaman. I thought you would be more...threatening. Though I guess the amount of Dark Power you have is going to be quite annoying to deal with," 'Pixel' spoke.
"What are you?" Megaman asked, staggering back a bit. Despite being visually shocked, her could also feel an intense anger from him. Why her? Why Pixel? Couldn't just one thing be in favor for his family for once!
"My name is Dragar; though I guess would could also call me Dark Pixel. Or perhaps you should honestly just call me the end of net society. Any one of them is good really," Dragar smiled sickly. Her tail raised above the ground agitated. Being both a dark soul and a cybeast made her completely open to being nothing more than the world's biggest weapon.
Megaman looked at the dark soul flabbergasted. He hated to admit it, but Dark Hub was right. The dark soul in front of him literally radiated danger and destruction. There was no eerie dark presence the followed her like normal Dark Power. Instead, her aura was literally pressuring him to back away, something only a Cybeast had been able to do (along with a few other 'gods' of the internet), "How...how is that possible?"
"So, even trying I can't seem to mask my own power. Ah well...," The dragonoid navi looked amusingly at the blue navi before her. Part of her just wanted to kill him and be done with it. But then again, she had never had this much control over Pixel's body before and she could already feel her body's energy slipping. Maybe about 5 to 7 minutes top left before she would have to back out or face deletion, "But as to your question. I believe the phrase is 'You have to beast me to find out,'" Dragar growled.
The Dark Dragon 'cracked' her neck. It was too much work to explain that when Pixel was born she had been awake. In actuality, she was the reason why Pixel could summon viruses beyond the skills of her mother. Or how at this stage, she was essentially as sedimentary as Dark Hub or Dark Roll were. Or even the fact that from the beginning her program had been "corrupted" by Roll's constant Dark Power checks which left the dark soul years to recover her full power from. Espcially the part when she had to take over the Beast Out program in order to survive said checks and made it hard for her to appear because now all she did was drain Pixel's energy drastically over the time whenever she was awake. Little things like that took far too long to explain; so why bother!
'Believe me now? And may I remind you that if she gets out of this area she'll be able to destroy EVERYTHING in SciLab?' Dark Hub remarked sarcastically. He wasn't going to be upstarted by his lighter half's kid's dark soul (although the thought ran by him that perhaps that Dragar would technically be "his" daughter too, which he promptly kicked out of his head and shot a Dark Giga Cannon at).
'...Fine.' Megaman thought. He wasn't happy about any of this, but his dark soul had a point. Dark Pixel was amping herself up to the point that area around him seemed to change colors. She almost seemed to have to literally become a Dark Cybeast. And now, she was in control of his daughter. Lan's PET might be off and he had no idea how soon he would be able to get in a position to help him. For now, he and Dark Hub were on their own until someone noticed, which with the amount of power Dark Pixel was radiating wouldn't be too long. He would just have to stall. Hub let go of his himself as his own body suit began to turn into a deep midnight blue. However, even upon reopening his eyes, they were still his normal green.
'There see. Still awake.' The dark soul said smugly as the Beast Out kicked in and the armor of Gregar took form.
However, Hub did have one question, 'So why are you planning to let me stay up? Normally, you'd try to do things all your way no matter what I say.'
'I wouldn't have if you would let me use the Beast Out more. But I have no plans in dying because of your stupid love that'll stop you from actually fighting her,' Dark Hub grumbled. That and he also was worried about the fact that he wasn't sure if he could beat her on his own, but there was no reason for him to know that.
'Are you admitting I'm better than you at something?'
'Just shut the hell up and help me snap your daughter back to normal. Though in all honesty we really should just ki-'
'Finish that sentence and this partnership is done.'
'Fine. Battle Routine, Set.'
'Execute.'
"Whoa...anyone else getting this mass energy spike?" a female scientist asked as she once again looked at her monitor. This was not only very unusual, but very worrisome. Despite increasing their security over the years, she always worried that some powerful navi would break in and destroy everything. Just like Crashman.
One of the other people in the room merely waved his hand, "It's probably just Hikari and his kid. Didn't he say that he was going to be using the that testing center in the back of the network for training or something like that?"
"He did; but these readings...this isn't normal. Someone get Dr. Hikari in here." the woman responded back as she began to review the numbers on the screen more carefully. If she was looking at this correctly, they were going to need the only person in the building who really knew the extent of this power.
"He's in the middle of a meeting! What could possible be so important about a little roughing up," the man chided as he wheeled himself over to where the woman was stationed.
"Would a mass build up of Dark Power be good enough for you? Now go get the doctor!"
"Dark Claw!" Hub/Dark Hub yelled as they pounced up into the air.
Dragar smirked, "Not good enough!" She flew just out of reach and grabbed him by her tail. She flew down and slammed the Cybeast infused navi into the ground, "Dragon Breath!" The mouth guard opened and fire blazed out of her mouth. The heat wrapped around the Gregar Beast Out, singing the navi. However, the two had faced a lot worse than the heat to allow it to slow them down too much.
"Spirit Vulcan!" A line of dark blue shot blasted from the Beast Out navi's main choice of weapon as he jumped out of the flames and landed back onto the ground, "Pixel! Snap out of it!" Megaman yelled, trying to reach out to the girl navi inside. Though his voice was a little but gruffer, probably due to the fact Dark Hub was also in control at the same time.
The Dragon Cybeast navi merely laughed, "Sorry Dad, but I'm afraid I just grew up. Amazing how that happens with kids. They're all cute and cuddly one second and then trying to kill you the next. Scale Shooter!" Dragar's buster appeared as she fired directly into the ground. The blast exploded into many more small scaled explosions upon hitting the ground.
'That's just like Pixel's Pixel Barrage!' Hub thought as they jumped out of the way of the attack, although they were pegged by a bit of debris from the blast.
'She is a dark soul you know. That's not that surprising!' Dark Hub scolded as Dragar came down again, taking advantage of the fact they were still in the air from the last blast and grabbed the navi by the tail again.
Dragar flew up high into the air. From this altitude, she could see pretty much all of the network. She had about 3 to 5 minutes left. If she wanted to leave an impression, she was going to have to make it quick. Now, where to chuck this baggage? Hmm...that console over there looked important. She descended at high speeds and just at the last second pulled up and hurled the Gregar Beast navi into a console.
Dark Hub/Hub groaned as the got up from the small impact crater they had made in the ground and looked behind them to see a control switch completely destroyed. It was seconds later that a voice sounded.
WARNING! VIRUS VAULT SECTOR 10 UNLOCKED! REPEAT! VIRUS VAULT HAS BEEN BREACHED!
'Who was the idiot that put that there?' Dark Hub groaned. Also, what was with this place and leaving EVERY dangerous thing around free to be used by anyone who had access, which in this case included flying dark cybeast navis.
'Don't know. But we've got bigger problems now.' Hub said as Skutellest and Dominerd Viruses began to surround the navi. The Dark Fused Cybeast had barely any time to move as another Scale Shooter descended upon them. Dark Pixel was boxing them in from the air. Dragar hadn't expected this to happen, but it was good enough for her.
'Damn...' Dark Hub said as the two brought out the vulcan again.
"Lock On! Meteor 3! Attack +50! Download!" Dragar flew back quickly as meteors came down from the sky and started to destroy all the viruses that had just been released. Well, there went that impromptu plan, "You okay, Megaman?" A man asked.
"Lan!" Hub said, more than happy to see his brother.
"What the heck is going on? What are you doing with Dark Hub?" He asked as he began to survey the whole scene. Though doing so, only gave him more questions than it did answers.
"No time! Pixel's in trouble. I need any chips that cause paralysis now!" The navi spoke hurriedly.
"Got it! Elec Cross! Elec Shot! Air Wheel 3! Stun Plus! Cannon! Download!" Lan said as he downloaded the chips.
"Pixel! Come on! I know you're still there!" Hub yelled as he fired the Elec Shot. If he had a chance to stun her, perhaps the dark soul would be too preoccupied to give his daughter a chance to try and fight back.
"I'm sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service! Here! Allow me to give you the forwarding one! Magma Surge!' The air around the Cybeast seemed to almost ignite. As the temperature went down in every part of the area but the immediate in front of the dragon navi, so did Megaman's heart.
Her wings were now dark flames. Red lines ran across Pixel's/Dragar's body like lava running through the ground. Her armor had turned black as pumice; her eyes had turned to burnt orange, "Impressed yet? She got all your abilities Megaman, which means I have them too! The only difference between us is that I'm the more powerful one! I am Cybeast, Human, Navi, and Darkness. And you are below me! Lava Pulse!" Dragar roared as circles began to form in front of her. With a wave of her hand, they all fired forming a straight line barreling straight for the Gregar navi.
'Repeat after me. You WILL NOT IMPREGNATE THAT PINK NAVI EVER AGAIN!' Dark Hub yelled as the two barreled out of the way of the blast.
Hub merely ignored him, taking an opportunity to attack, "Air Wheel!" He launched the spinning orange wheel at the navi. Dragar caught the device but Air Wheel was an old chip. She didn't know that when stopped, the wheel blasted air. The sudden attack caught her off guard as she soon found herself unable to move. She started falling straight down towards the ground.
"Thunder Roar!" The Gregar Beast navi reared back and launched his electric wave, cracking the ground in front of him and directly hitting the navi again for another round of stunning, "Pixel, wake up! I don't want to hurt you!"
The dragonoid navi feel to the ground, looking sort of unnatural due to the fact she was paralyzed. It was fading pretty quick, but so was her hold, "Pixel, isn't here right now. I can arrange for you to meet her though. Just wait until the paralysis is over and then I'll kill you and you can meet her in Murkland! Hmm, well I guess that isn't as possible as I though but just wait until I get my hands on...
"DAD!"
"Go down!" the dragon roared as it fired another round of fire. Apparently being the daughter of Megaman meant that she got up a lot faster than expected when presumed dead. Though it was her own stupid fault; that Surge had cost her her last bit of time awake. It shouldn't have been much of a surprise that Pixel was able to fight back now.
"NO! I won't let you hurt him!" Pixel yelled as she fired another barrage at the beast. When Dark Pixel first took over, she had been knocked completely unconscious. But she had woken up pretty quickly and saw the beast that she had brought out.
"You really think that you could control me? HA! Don't make me laugh! Your father barely controls the one he has now and you dare challenge one that is sentient?" The dragon cackled, although she was actually trying to make a plan in her head. If left in their current state, it would take forever for her to arise again. Those two would certainly put her in that Dark Power reducer or whatever it was called and Pixel would definitely not try to activate the Beast Out for some time. She was not going back to sleep for such an indefinite amount of time!
"Yeah I do. You're nothing more than a dark soul. I am a Hikari and I will not let you beat me! Pixel Blast!" She fired as an orb fired out of her buster. As the blast hit, the dragon made no noise.
As the smoke cleared, to Pixel's surprise, it was no where to be found. Pixel smiled. She did it! She won! Now she could wake up and everything would be alright! Happiness flooded her for a moment, the nightmare was over...until she felt someone grab where her crest would have been. As she turned her head, she merely saw a darker version of herself. Dark red eyes met green.
"Sorry Pixel, but I'm AM NOT an average dark soul. And thus you're not an average navi. Dark Hub and Dark Roll will forever be lost in their tango with their lighter halfs. Constantly going to sleep and waking up forever until one of them kicks the bucket. However, you and I are going to have a much better relationship. In fact, I'll give you a gift."
Pixel screamed as she felt claws rack her. As she looked down she saw a representation of her navi crest, two crescent moons making a heart over a red background. Now, it was slashed with three marks. Three dragon claw marks. Pixel looked back at her darker half. "It's a good look. Well, I suppose that'll be all for today. After all, it appears that I've burned through most of your energy. I'm going to have to find someway to work around that. Ah well, until next time Pixel. Which for all you know, could be as late as tonight."
When Pixel opened her eyes, she didn't imagine seeing this bright white light. She thought that was a thing that only happened to actual humans, although she was technically half human. But from the fact she was hearing voices, she didn't think she was dead. Then again, she didn't know anyone who knew what deletion was like; besides her dad, but she didn't like to talk to him about that. She blinked her eyes a couple of times as she noticed she was on the ground. As she tried to get up, she felt someone hug her, "Mom?"
"Oh thank goodness you're alright!" A emotional Roll said, practically crying. The pink navi was quite sure what she was feeling, what with the concern over her daughter and then the her husband telling her that she was condemned to the same fate they were. And then with what had happened a few moments ago...
"You gave us all a scare Pixel," Megaman said relieved; happy that Pixel was alright.
"A 'scare'? She practically made everyone get a heart attack!" Stream yelled. When she screamed two seconds ago, her could have sworn that everyone both in the real world and cyber world had stopped moving. On some level, despite the irrational of it, he blamed himself. He hadn't said anything about Pixel's form during the fight because he thought it was just some advanced form of the Gregar Beast Out.
"Dad? What...what happened? Why is Mom and Stream here?" Pixel asked, trying to put back the pieces of her memory together.
The question hung in the air for a couple of minutes before the blue navi responded. "After you were paralyzed, you pretty much shut down. I brought you back over here and called Mom. And then well...we thought you would be okay and just recover until…." Megaman stopped short.
Pixel looked straight ahead, not even bothering to look down. Something told her that it hadn't been a dream. Rather than trying to see it, she decided to just ask, "My icon's scarred...isn't it?" The silence in the room confirmed her suspicions. But what the heck would it mean. Pixel could feel her now, it was if Dragar had isolated herself off a grid. Perhaps that was how she managed to avoid her mom's and dad's dark souls for so longer. But what did it matter now...
"Mom…Dad..." Pixel started, before she caved and began crying.
"Hey, it's going to be okay, Pix. It's going to be okay," Roll said holding her tighter.
"Did you figure out anything about those marks?" Mayl asked as she finished putting the last of the dishes into the dishwasher. She had been outside with Kei and Patch since after the whole dark soul revelation, everyone agreed to give Pixel some space. A Dark Power test did confirm that Dragar was at least around, although her presence had been so minimal. Though what was interesting, and unfair, was that it appeared as if Stream didn't have a dark soul. At all. Though there would probably be more tests needed to be done to make sure.
Lan sighed heavily, "Not much since earlier. Dark Pixel herself is a mystery already. How she got this advanced behind the scenes is incredible. Though I think I may have pieced that together. She might have been operating really in the background of Pixel's programming. So whenever she did something, it would come of as Pixel's energy signature and not a Dark Power one." Lan shook his head, "I don't know what's worse. The fact that this got past us or the fact that we can't even get rid of her. Every time we try, those marks start glowing and then fry the machine. Not only that, but they seem to also drain Pixel too if only by a little. Dragar's pretty much halted us from removing her."
Lan turned to Mayl, "Has she been doing any better since she got back?"
The red haired woman shook her head, "Not that I can tell. Kei's been trying to get her to talk but she hasn't budged," Mayl sighed, "I really hope she'll be alright. I'm scared she'll start closing herself off."
"Well, let's just need to give her time. It took Roll and Hub a while to get used to their dark souls. She just needs a moment."
"Yeah...I hope that's the case."
Ghost: Keheheh...HAHAHA! And thus I have shown one of the central conflicts in this upcoming DNE. It was bad enough with dark souls but now we actually have a Dark Cybeast to deal with. As if a Hikari's life could never be anymore crazy. But still, what's done is done. Hope you guys stick around for the end of DN4, read DN5 and then the DNE adventure after this. There might be other one shot DNEs but you'll know when the adventure is here. Welp, 'til next time! Ghost501 logging out!