Hey everyone. It`s Kitty! I made Bass and Chaula go home since I am feeling good enough to do this stuff on my own now. So anyway, I`ll just cut to the chase, since I am very tired. Lan and his friends were just attacked by a giant snake. They fought hard but none of their attacks had any effect. The snake knocked all three of them back and told them her master was going to be making demands. Who is she? Who is her master? Will our heroes be able to stop them? Let's find out!

After the attack, Lan, Chaud, and Raika stumbled into a standing position and limped back to SciLabs. The serpent's warning alarmed everyone and they began discussing what they could do about this problem in the conference room.

"Maybe we could use the beast-out chips to take it out?"

"Lan, don't be stupid. I'm pretty sure even Gregar's claws won't pierce her armor. We should get her into a place where we could use gravity to finish her off." Chaud and Lan had been arguing like this for awhile now, and everyone else was at a loss, all except Raika, who had been thinking hard about their current problem. It was during these activities that an all-too-familiar face showed up on the main screen to greet them.

"The Professor!"

"Hello there. It seems my darling pet has gotten loose. I hope she didn't break anything of value." He mocked. Chaud gritted his teeth and glared at him, his eyes starting to slit. Protoman reached out a paw to him and grabbed his shoulder, willing him to calm down while their enemy looked at them with delight.

"So that snake is yours? What do you want?" Dr. Hikari asked calmly. The Professor smirked and touched his chin as if contemplating his demands.

"Let's see, I want you to create more cyberbeasts for me, I want you to get more personality data for me, and I want you to find more of that animal program my friend found in that vault in Sharo." He stated, pointing to Dr. Hikari, Chaud, and Raika, respectively.

"I'll give you a week to think it over, and if you refuse, you'll have to contemplate what went wrong in Vipress's stomach. See you in a week!" He said, laughing wildly as his serpent's silhouette writhed in the background. Suddenly, the transmission was cut off and everyone was silent. Raika shut his eyes tightly and shook his head slowly. He buried his face in his hands while Searchman prepared to send an email to Chaula to inform her about the robberies. Raika looked up at everyone and stood up, much to their surprise, and he cleared his throat before speaking.

"Well, our worst fears were confirmed and to things even more horrible, our enemy is a lunatic with a creature fetish. However, if Vipress is what I think she is, then we may have a shot at her." Raika said. Lan tilted his head at Raika and Megamanstood up on his shoulders.

"What do you mean? That snake pulverized us, withstanding even the program advance!" He pointed out. Raika glared at him for pointing out their utter failure at their attempt to stop Vipress, but quickly got over it and was about to explain when another face appeared on the large screen in the conference room.

"OUR PROGRAM WAS STOLEN BY MADMAN WHO USED IT TO CREATE A MONSTER!?" Chaula yelled, roaring and snarling in her wolf form. Her pointed face glared at the group as she bared her fangs, her eyes the color of amber. In the background, you could see Bass and Protias cowering to the far wall and staring wide-eyed at their werewolf friend. Raika gulped and looked sternly at the screen, hiding his fear at his companion's anger very well.

"Take it easy Chaula, you're letting the wolf talk. Put it back in the cage and we'll talk, I'm fairly certain there isn't a full moon tonight." He told her. Chaula's face slackened and she swallowed a few times, getting control of her temper. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and when she opened them they had returned to their deep, sapphire blue. Bass and Protias heaved a sigh of relief and slowly relaxed from their fearful position and walked back over to Chaula. Grabbing the bridge of her nose, Chaula walked off screen and Bass shakily took center screen.

"I have fought giant dogs, bad-ass aliens, the master of the undernet, and Megaman on steroids. I have been mortally afraid only once. That was just now, seeing Chaula in full-fledged werewolf mode. I can see where all those legends about them came from." Bass stated, ruffling his feathers. Raika chuckled and nodded.

"She doesn't get like that often. Normally, it's in my defense when she does." He said. Chaula came back and gently nudged the griffin away, glowering at everyone in her human form and concentrating her gaze on Raika.

"So what do we do?" She asked. Raika breathed deeply and looked lovingly at her.

"We become hunters. How do hunters deal with weresnakes?" He said, everyone looked confusingly at him while Chaula grinned.

"Of course! I see it now, I'll be there momentarily." She told them. Raika piped up.

"No way! I don't want you fighting this thing. I'll be fine on my own. If you really want to help, see if Protias and Bass can track which way the thief who took our program went." Raika said. Chaula pouted and sighed, defeated.

"Fine. But at least take Bass. I've already sent him to you. See you when you come home Rai-Rai." She said and the screen went black. Raika's PET beeped and he saw Bass standing by Searchman. Sighing, Raika looked at his confused friends and smirked.

"We may have a way to fight back." He explained. Dr. Hikari twitched in surprise and looked at him.

"How?"

"Well, Vipress is substantial thanks to Chaula's 'Call of the Wild' program. Which means she may have weresnake tendencies." He said. Chaud's face grew stern and he glared at Raika.

"Meaning we stick her with gold and it'll hurt her?" He said dangerously. Raika shook his head.

"No. When we were designing the program we installed a fail-safe system to prevent that. Our navis are cyber-animals, not lycans. If you were to stab Chaula with a silver blade, it would damage her greatly, but if you were to take that same knife to Protias in her wolf form, it would be no different from a regular knife. However, there are other characteristics Vipress shares with weresnakes we could take advantage of. We know two thirds of her makeup, the only thing missing is the third program that made her, and only your dad can tell us that. But I think we can work around that." Raika told them.

As he talked, Chaud had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, and even felt sorry for Vipress as they sat here and planned her death. He didn't know why, but he grew angry with them for wanting to hurt her. He got up and left the room to calm down while everyone else continued to talk, and no one seemed to notice. No one except Protoman that is, who promptly followed him.

TBC

Well, that was an interesting chapter. Sorry it took me so long. I have this aggravating project going on at school and one of the guys who is supposed to help me on it is useless. Wish me luck on it guys! I`ll get the next chapter out as soon as I can. See ya.

Kitty