For the sake of my own sanity, and also for anyone who missed them in the last chapter, I'll keep putting Virus and Flight's profiles in the ANs. At least for the next several chapters.

/01ndi1falgd8

That's Virus.

/0784ncmxtbv

And there's Flight.

(If these links don't work/can't be seen, just PM me for the links and I'll give them to you personally, I'll be more than happy to!)

Like I said before, I'll be putting in the map I drew during the end-of-chapter AN, mainly because we haven't actually heard what the other districts are even called yet. So it'll be kind of spoilers if I put the map in here, and I'm not particularly fond of spoilers. Unless there's a good reason.

Moving on, let's go straight into this, because there's quite a lot planned and I don't want to end up with the same problem I had with chapter five.

I don't own MegaMan Battle Network/NT Warrior, on with the show!

OOOOOO

Chaud woke up to a dark room and someone poking his shoulder.

He opened his eyes a little, still half-asleep. There was someone kneeling on his bed and hovering over him.

Suddenly fully-awake, Chaud opened his mouth to shout, but the person quickly slapped their hand over his mouth and shushed him harshly.

"Do. Not," Zoet whispered.

"Mmf," Chaud said. Zoet removed her hand, but the look she gave him said talk quietly or die, so he kept his voice low. "What are you doing in here?" he hissed.

"Waking you up, duh."

"It's-" He quickly checked the time. "-four in the morning. Even I don't get up this early. What are you doing here?"

"I'm supposed to show you around the city today, dumbass brat. There's eight districts, nine including the marina, and we can only go through half of them in a single day, but even that'll take a long time, so we gotta get up bright and early," Zoet explained. She leaned back but stayed kneeling on his bed, and Chaud forced himself to sit up.

"How did you even get in here?" Chaud demanded.

In response, Zoet moved to the side and gestured to the open window. It hadn't been open when he'd gone to sleep last night.

Chaud looked at it blankly, and then turned his gaze to Zoet. "We're on the top floor of the biggest and tallest hotel in the entire district," he said, "and that window was locked. From the inside."

"What's your point?"

Chaud stared at her in stunned silence.

After a moment, Zoet realised he wasn't going to respond, so she slid off his bed and grabbed his PET off the bedside table. He didn't even register that she'd taken it until she was standing at the window, poised to jump out.

"Meet you outside the lobby in twenty minutes," Zoet told him.

He jumped out of bed and she jumped out of the window, and all Chaud could do was stare blankly at the place where she'd been.

" . . . What have I gotten myself into?" he asked himself.

oooo

He left a hastily-scrawled note on the front of his hotel room door and hoped that the others wouldn't get angry at him for this. They'd probably think he was being a prick, but in this case he didn't have much choice. Zoet had seen to that. Actually, that was probably why she'd taken his PET, just to make sure he didn't go back to sleep.

Chaud nodded to the receptionist in the lobby as he walked by, trying to appear as though this was completely normal for him, and found Zoet waiting for him outside.

"You took your sweet time," Zoet commented, turning to face him. "I downloaded a few maps into your PET so we don't get lost. ProtoMan's actually better at map-reading than my guys are, so we'll follow his directions if we get lost."

"You're supposed to be my guide," Chaud pointed out, "not the other way around."

Zoet shrugged and handed his PET over. "Just because I live in this city doesn't mean I know every district off-by-heart. In fact, I've only ever been to this district a few times, and I'm not particularly fond of it."

"Why not?"

Zoet gestured above their heads, to the empty space where, in every other district, various walkways would have been. "There's no walkways," she explained, sounding mildly offended. "It's . . . it's just weird, is what it is. This place feels really empty. Also, the Haven District is mainly for tourists and guests and idiots."

It wasn't too difficult to guess which one Zoet classified him as.

"So, we're going on a whirlwind tour of Haven, and then we're going to the Jungle District," Zoet told him, spinning on her heel and walking off. Chaud rushed after her, because even if she had downloaded a map to his PET, he still felt like he'd get lost if he didn't follow her.

"Jungle District?" he repeated. "There's an actual jungle down here?"

"Kind of," Zoet hedged, waving her hand around in a so-so gesture. "A lot of the plants are real, but we do have the occasional fake and mechanical plants, because otherwise the entire district would just fall apart. Also some of the plants we want to have can't actualy survive underground."

"Why are there-"

"Save the questions for when we're in the relevant district, brat."

He rolled his eyes but complied, if only because it did make more sense to wait until he was in the Jungle District to ask about it.

. . . An actual jungle. Wow. Nowhere City was full of surprises, and each one was cooler than the last.

As she said, Zoet did indeed take him on a whirlwind tour of the Haven District. She said it was the third-smallest district in the city, if you included the marina (Virus said that most people did), and explained that Haven was originally built to be something else entirely. The original purpose of the district had been lost to history, but now the district was where tourists and other such people stayed when they were in the city, with the highest number of hotels, inns, eateries, and basically anything you'd expect to find in a place that catered for tourists.

There was also Haven's internet Square, which was also mainly for tourist Navis. It seemed that Virus and Flight shared Zoet's opinion when it came to Haven Square, and Chaud had to say he couldn't honestly blame the three of them. In comparison to the other districts he'd seen so far, Haven - both the real version and the cyber version - seemed kind of forced.

It was kind of okay, he guessed, but that was probably just because he was a guest in the city. He was looking at it from an outsider's point of view, while Zoet and her Navis were looking at it from the point of view of a native of the city.

"I won't bother showing you the inside of the Sun Pyramid," Zoet said, when they found themselves in the square around it. There was a square around every Sun Pyramid, what was basically the central hub of every single district. "Not for this district at least."

"Why not?" Chaud asked curiously, and then he paused. "Wait, you can go inside the pyramids?"

"Well, duh," Zoet said, looking at him like he was an idiot. "You think the Sun Pyramids are so massive for the hell of it? Sure, the mechanism for the lights is pretty big, but it still wouldn't take up that much space."

"The Sun Pyramids are used for different things, depending on the district," Flight spoke up from Zoet's PET. "In the Haven District, it's basically used for the benefit of tourists. It's got the largest gift shop in the whole district, and has several useful information booths."

"It also houses the foreign exchange bureau," Virus added, "and other services to aid tourists and guests during their stay. To the citizens of Nowhere, it is known as the tourist tomb."

"That's a little morbid," Chaud commented.

"Tomb is basically the same as pyramid," Zoet huffed, rolling her eyes. "Moron."

"Stop-"

"No."

There wasn't much else that they could do in Haven, and after getting lost a grand total of eleven times (Chaud was actually not to blame for once, this was entirely on Zoet, but she didn't seem to bothered by this), they arrived at the Haven District tram station.

The Jungle District was twenty minutes away via tram, but they had to wait a few minutes for the tram itself to arrive. It seemed that trams in Nowhere City were essentially the same as buses in DenTech City. At least it was a smooth ride, and at this time of the morning, there was hardly anyone around, so the tram was almost empty except for Chaud, Zoet, and a man who kept muttering to himself about structures.

oooo

"Oh my god," Chaud said when he stepped out of the Jungle Station and into the Jungle District.

Chaud was still trying to withhold his opinion until he'd seen all of the districts, but this one was by far the most impressive one he'd seen. It seemed almost like a hidden village deep in a forest or an actual jungle, or maybe something from a game. Like the Science District, the streets were randomly spread out, but instead of a maze it was almost like an actual jungle town. Or, well, city.

Most of the buildings in this district were covered in what looked like vines and leaves and various other types of foliage. The streets looked like pathways from a forest, and Chaud would have assumed that this was indeed a forest had the streets not been wide enough for vehicles to go on. The dirt track was the road, while the pavement was springy and soft grass. Vines and leaves and different plants grew everywhere in this district.

And then, the most impressive part of the district, at least in his opinion.

The walkways weren't just metal paths suspended by mechanical pillars. Instead, they looked exactly like giant branches, and the pillars themselves were modelled after giant trees. Unlike the other districts' walkways, these ones didn't meet up on four-way platforms, instead they crisscrossed in every single direction - some paths crossed in mid-air while others joined up with the giant trees to make the platforms around the trunks. Some of the branches were actually big enough to accommodate what looked like log houses.

"Impressed, huh?" Zoet asked smugly, standing next to him.

"Oh my god," Chaud said again.

"Yep. I may be a little biased, but this is the best district in the entire city," Zoet said, glancing around.

"Why are you biased?" ProtoMan asked, because Chaud was too busy gaping at the district to ask himself.

"I live here. In this district, specifically."

Chaud finally dragged himself out of his shock and turned to Zoet. "You live here?" he repeated. "Seriously? That is awesome."

"I get the feeling you don't normally act so giddy," Zoet said dryly.

"He gets like this when he's in the middle of a sugar rush, but he hasn't had any coffee lately, so he's probably just extremely excited," ProtoMan said.

"Let me and my giddiness be," Chaud protested.

They spent far more time in the Jungle District than they did in the Haven District. Chaud suspected this was because Zoet just wanted to show off her home district, but he didn't mind because he was enjoying himself a lot.

Zoet took him around the streets first, showing him what they looked like. The forest path theme was everywhere, but each street was unique, even if only by a little bit. Heck, everything in this district was unique, right down to even the buildings themselves. That was because of all the plants, he suspected. They made everything different.

"The mechanical plants are the trees," Zoet explained, when she decided to take him up to the walkways. "There's other mechanical plants too, but these are the main ones since they're our version of the usual walkways. The trunks have lifts inside them, and we don't really need support pillars to keep the walkways up since the branches are pretty sturdy on their own. You can probably tell by the way some people live on them."

"Don't forget the Sun Pyramid!" Flight called.

"I'm getting to it, shut up you crazy-haired maniac," Zoet snapped.

"Oi, oi, you like the hair, Your Rudeness!"

"I do like your hair, yeah, but at this point I seriously have to wonder why-"

"You take that back or I'll kick your ass six ways to Sunday the next time we're in the training room!"

"Good luck with that, bird-brain."

Virus just sighed at their bickering, and didn't bother to intervene.

" . . . These guys are professionals?" Chaud wondered quietly.

ProtoMan just shrugged. "Well, it's not like anyone ever said that professionals have to act like professionals," he pointed out mildly. "Take Lan and MegaMan, for example. Or even you."

"And what exactly does that mean?" Chaud asked suspiciously.

"You have a very bad habit of getting lost constantly. Also, you're a sugar addict."

Chaud was about to argue, but then he paused and shrugged, conceeding the point. "Fair enough," he admitted.

They waited for Zoet and Flight to stop arguing, and eventually made their way to the centre of the Jungle District, the Sun Pyramid. Like all the other pyramids he'd seen, it was big, it was black, and the light at the tip was a soft red that, even as he watched, seemed to be turning yellow.

Late dawn, then. Chaud wondered when the sun would rise properly.

"You know how the times for these things work?" Zoet asked, breaking him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah," Chaud replied. "Yellow for day, blue for night, red for dawn, and purple for dusk."

Zoet looked mildly surprised that he actually got that right, and Chaud felt a bit of childish glee at finally catching her off-guard, however briefly.

She took him inside the pyramid, and now it was his turn, once again, to be surprised. The interior of the Sun Pyramid was a lot bigger than he'd imagined, and while he didn't know what the Haven District's looked like (Zoet had told him he could go and look at it himself, since she didn't exactly enjoy going in there), he imagined it was similar to this.

It was a giant room with a high but flat ceiling. He hadn't known what he'd been expecting for the ceiling, maybe something triangular-shaped since it was inside a pyramid, but there was probably a second floor above the room that housed the mechanism for the Sun Pyramid's light. All around the room there were different things, everything from shops to food courts. People walked in between stalls and chatted to each other and bought things, and Chaud was reminded of the Bomb Festival going on in the Gate District, although this was different.

"This is the Jungle District's main market," Zoet told him. "It's the biggest one in the district, not to mention the most popular. Like I said, every district has their own use for the these pyramids, and this is our use."

"Are the interiors of every pyramid the same?" Chaud wondered, looking around.

"The giant room on the ground floor? Yeah, pretty much. The second floor is where the light mechanism is kept, and the ground floor is open for use, as long as whatever it gets used for doesn't endanger the light mechanism in any way," Zoet answered. "Here, let's take a break, I'm tired as hell - and we've still got a couple more things to see here before we move on."

Chaud wondered if she meant 'here' as in the Sun Pyramid, or 'here' as in the district itself, and then decided that she probably meant the latter. You could pretty much see all of the market from the entrance of the pyramid, and it was just one big energetic market.

There were a few benches scattered around, so they sat down on an empty one for a while.

"Hey," Zoet said, after a couple of minutes of comfortable silence.

"Hm?"

"Get your PET out."

Chaud bit back a retort - it wouldn't do him much good to annoy her enough to make her abandon him here, even if ProtoMan had maps - and took it out. He handed the PET over when she made a 'gimme' gesture, and watched her tap at the screen for a few moments.

Then she gave him back his PET, and he looked at the screen. There was a map on there, but it didn't seem to be of the Jungle District, or any district in particular.

"That's Nowhere City," Zoet told him. "Everything including the marina, since that's part of the city as well."

"It looks like a weird hexagon," Chaud commented.

"Well, excuse us for living underground." Zoet looked mildly offended, but she didn't call him an idiot or anything, so that was a plus. "How many districts do you know? By name, this is."

Chaud frowned at the map for a moment. "Nearly all of them, actually," he realised. He pointed at the only two he hadn't heard of yet. "I don't know these two, though."

Zoet nodded. "Right. We'll go over all of them, though, just in case - and also because I need to tell you our route for the tour, actually. So. First district we toured, the Haven District, that's here." She pointed at one of the districts marked on the map. "We went on the tramline from the Haven Station to the Jungle Station, and now we're here-" Now she moved her finger to the district below the Haven District. "-in the Jungle District. After this we'll go through the tramline again and go into the Cultural District, and once we're done there, the Gate District. And finally, for today at least, the marina."

"Why?" Chaud asked. "I mean, I'm not complaining, but the tramline splits into a Y above the Cultural District there, so why not just go straight from this district to the Historical District, and then tour everything past that? We could go to the Cultural District and everything else tomorrow."

Zoet closed her eyes for a moment, and Chaud found himself leaning away warily.

"Because," Zoet eventually said, opening her eyes and glaring at him, "I said so. And it's easier to go from this district to the Cultural one anyway. Besides that, the districts on the other side of the city will take more time to get to. But mostly because I said so and if you dare question me again I'll tear out your kneecaps and force them down your throat."

Chaud stared at her, appalled.

" . . . I'm kidding," she said, after a horrifying pause. He was relieved for half a second before being horrified once again as she continued. "I wouldn't force them down your throat. I'd give them to a dog."

Chaud had to actively resist the urge to run for his life.

God, this girl was terrifying.

Why did Arin think this was a good idea, again?

He heard ProtoMan whispering to Flight and Virus, "She wouldn't really hurt him, would she?"

"Ehh," Flight replied, "depends on her mood."

"I would say 'no', but I have no wish to lie to you," Virus also replied.

"Back to what we were on about before we got districted," Zoet said. "The districts. Gate, Cultural, Historical, Jungle, Military, Haven, Battle Dome, Science, and finally the marina itself. We've gone through the Haven District and we're almost done in the Jungle District, and you already know where we're going next for today. Tomorrow, we'll be going through the Historical District, then the Military District, then the Battle Dome, then the Science District, and if I can, I'll see if I can get you a one-day-pass to check out the tram service station in the middle of the city's tunnel network."

"Right," Chaud replied automatically. "Okay."

"I'm not actually going to tear out your kneecaps, you know," Zoet pointed out flatly.

"Sure."

Zoet sighed.

Ten minutes later, Chaud had somehow managed to stop being so terrified of her (but not wary, because he wasn't stupid, no matter what Zoet said), and she took him to the last two stops in their tour of the Jungle District.

The first of these two stops was her school, for some reason.

"During the Bomb Festival," Zoet said, "all schools across the city are closed, seeing as it's a city-wide holiday and all. Which is great for me, because I hate school."

"She is literally never on time and doesn't even bother to pay attention in class," Flight added cheerfully.

"Yet somehow she has good grades in all her classes," Virus said. "We are uncertain as to how. We suspect she may be cheating, but are unable to prove our theory as of yet."

"Be quiet, you two," Zoet told them. She looked at Chaud. "There's two weeks of the Bomb Festival left, so I have two weeks of free time, most of which I'll be spending with you, unfortunately."

"Don't get too excited," Chaud muttered.

"Hush, brat. After the Bomb Festival, I'll be back in school, so you'll need to figure out some way to lie to your friends about where you're going when it's evening or whatever. This isn't my problem so don't bother asking me for help. But if you need me for whatever reason and I'm in school, just go to the front desk and ask for me by name, and when they ask why, just say 'because of reasons'."

"Are . . . are you being serious?" Chaud hesitantly asked.

"Yes."

When Chaud continued to look confused, Flight decided to take pity on him.

"It's a code," she explained. "Every Underground NetBattler has one, in case of an emergency and they need to come in right that second. Zoet's is 'because of reasons', and while they don't know the full story, the staff at school will get Zoet from class or whatever she's doing without asking any questions."

"Last stop here," Zoet declared, turning on her heel and striding away without waiting for Chaud to catch up, "my house."

For a second he was confused, but then he realised it kind of made sense to know where the operative he was shadowing lived.

And, when they arrived at Zoet's house, he was once again shocked. This was turning out to be a permanent state for him.

"You live here?" he gasped.

"Didn't you already say that?" Zoet frowned.

"Yes, but . . . I mean . . ."

"Chaud," ProtoMan spoke up, "it's not like this is new. You live in a mansion too."

"Yeah but the mansion I live in isn't built into a goddamn tree."

Unlike the log houses that were built on top of the branches of the tree platforms, Zoet's house - or mansion, that is - seemed to be part of the actual tree itself. There were no walkways leading to the tree mansion, isolating it and marking it as a high-society home, and the majority of the mansion seemed to be built into the actual trunk of the tree. The front gates were among the roots of the tree, and while it wasn't exactly an estate, the gardens around the tree mansion were certainly finer than the rest of the overgrown district.

"I'd show you the inside, but there's not enough time," Zoet told him, much to Chaud's disappointment. "Maybe when I have a day off or something. For now, it's time to go to the Cultural District."

oooo

The Cultural District was colourful.

That was the first thing that popped into his mind the moment he stepped into the district proper, and the atmosphere of this district was almost like that of the Bomb Festival, just more spread out. Literally, since it was all over an entire district.

"The Cultural District is the biggest district in the entire city," Zoet told him. "It's home to anything artsy; drama, music, actual arts . . . Basically this is the creative district. It's also where the best cinemas in the city are, and all of the arts colleges and schools."

"Zoet, at one point, expressed a desire to attend one of those schools," Virus put in. Zoet didn't immediately tell it to shut up, so presumably this was a safe topic. "She wished to become a drummer, but failed the entrance exam into the Musical Arts Academy."

"What happened?" Chaud asked curiously.

"I threw the drum sticks at the examiner," Zoet replied with no hint of shame. "I've still got the whole kit actually."

"She still plays sometimes, mainly out of boredom," Flight added. "She's actually really good, too! Hey, maybe you can play for Chaud at some point."

"He wishes," Zoet scoffed.

Zoet took him through the colourful streets - these were wider than any of the other districts' streets, most likely because the amount of space in this particular cavern allowed the district to have wider streets - and to the Cultural District's Sun Pyramid. While they were walking through the wide streets, he noticed a lot of chalk drawings on the ground, and a lot of creative graffiti on various things, most commonly walls but also on various other things like bins or even cars.

"Graffiti isn't really illegal in Nowhere," Zoet said, when she noticed him looking. "It's not really common in most districts, but here, you can't go five steps without seeing at least one bit of graffiti. It's a form of art, so it's encouraged here, unless it's offensive or crude. The chalk drawings are even cooler. The best ones are in the pyramid square."

And indeed they were. There were chalk drawings practically everywhere in the pyramid square, from small ones to large ones, and every single one was completely unique. The first one that really caught Chaud's eye was a large 3D drawing that showed the edge of a precarious cliff, and it seemed so real that he almost felt like he was about to fall into it.

A trio of symbol-based drawings took up quite a bit of space several metres away, and there was a fourth one in-progress. They seemed to be based on Navi elements, and there was a space in the middle, presumably for non-elemental.

Just before the entrance into the Sun Pyramid was another symbol-based drawing, this time a completed chalk drawing of the yin-yang symbol. It wasn't just the simple design of the yin-yang however, it was more . . . detailed. As if the artist had used the yin-yang as a base and had decided to add their own personal spin on it.

"There's also graffiti around the square too, but it's mostly chalk art," Zoet told him. "And inside the pyramid . . ."

She led him inside, and gestured grandly (and somewhat sarcastically) to the interior. Chaud had, despite what Zoet had told him, been expecting something similar to the market in the Jungle District, but this was completely different.

"Welcome to the Cultural Arts Fest," Zoet said. "The exhibition's on all the time, and it changes once a month. Last month I think it was something to do with food, and this month it's fireworks."

"It usually changes exhibitions on the first of every month," Flight added. "But the exhibitions also change on different days if there's a special occasion, such as the Bomb Festival. Hence the fireworks exhibition."

"I know a few people who would be really happy to be here right now," Chaud commented absently, as holographic fireworks exploded over everyone's heads.

They explored the exhibit for a while, and then, as they were walking out of the pyramid's square, Zoet asked if he was hungry.

At that exact moment, Chaud's stomach remembered that he hadn't had any breakfast because Zoet had forced him out of the hotel before he could get anything to eat, and it let out an embarrassingly-loud growl.

"Uh," Chaud said, cheeks slightly red, "yes. I am. Is too late for breakfast or is it late enough for brunch?"

Zoet gave him a strange look. "What the hell is brunch?"

"Late breakfast, early lunch," Chaud explained shortly.

He didn't ask why she didn't know what brunch was - if it had been Lan standing here, he most likely would've gotten offended or shocked, but Chaud wasn't like that. There were cultural differences between every country on the planet, and if Nowhere City (and by extension, Savaro itself) didn't have anything resembling brunch, he wasn't about to kick up a fuss about it. Heck, maybe they did have something like it, but perhaps it had a different name.

The eateries in the Cultural District were just as colourful as everything else. Zoet took him to a place with a sign that, once again, he couldn't read (ProtoMan, being a NetNavi, translated for him - this particular eatery was called Netwrecker Cafe, but despite the name it was fairly calm, aside from the heated NetBattle going on in the corner), and ordered some food for them.

"What do you want?" Zoet asked. Chaud suspected she'd almost forgotten to ask, but he didn't mention it.

He frowned at the menu, looking for something he could recognise, but while the menu was colourful and full of pictures and whatever else, he still couldn't figure out what foods the cafe had available.

"Uh," he said.

"Chaud," ProtoMan called, "I've translated the menu - here, have a look."

He took out his PET and scanned the list that ProtoMan had brought up for him. It turned out that most of the foods on the menu were familiar to him, but there were a few things he'd never heard of. They had kind of weird names, and he wasn't sure if they were special combos or weird Savaron foods.

"You a tourist?" the cashier asked him knowingly. It was easier to pretend that was true, so Chaud nodded. "In that case, I'd recommend something easy - most Savaron foods are kind of . . . spicy, at least for any non-Savaron people. How about this? It's just seafood with rice and a little bit of sauce. Unless you don't like seafood; in which case, you can just have the rice with the sauce."

"I don't mind seafood," Chaud told him.

"I do," Zoet muttered. Chaud ignored her.

"How much is that?" Chaud asked, already reaching for his PET.

"Two and a half coin," the cashier replied cheerfully.

Chaud paused, and stared at him blankly.

"I only have zenny . . .?" he offered weakly. He had no idea what 'coin' was, but it was most likely the currency that Savaro used. Oh, he should have gone into the Haven District's Sun Pyramid. Virus had said that the foreign exchange bureau was there, why didn't he think of this earlier?

"I'll pay for him," Zoet unexpectedly said. "And I'm having the spicy wings meal. Add in a couple of drinks, too. Cola for me."

"Coffee, lots of sugar," Chaud said, when the cashier glanced at him questioningly. He ignored ProtoMan's exasperated sigh.

After a moment of typing in their orders, the chasier nodded. "Right, that'll be eight and a half coin," he told them.

Zoet handed over the money and they were directed to an empty booth, where they sat down opposite each other and placed their PETs on the table.

While they were waiting for their order, Chaud glanced at Zoet's PET curiously. It looked almost exactly like her mothers, except the colours were inverted, so it was black where Arin's was yellow, and yellow where Arin's was black. But there was something strange about the PET, and he just couldn't quite figure it out. Sure, it looked a little different to his own, but that was due to the difference in countries - evidently Nowhere City manufactured their own versions of the PET, but they still used the base model that had been first created in DenTech City, specifically SciLab, by Dr. Tadashi Hikari.

After a moment of pondering, he finally figured out what was so strange about Zoet's PET.

She only had one.

Roahm, one of the leaders of the Underground NetBattlers who Chaud had met yesterday, had two Navis and two PETs - one for each Navi. Zoet also had two Navis, and yet, for some reason, she only had a single PET. And it seemed that Flight and Virus shared the PET quite happily.

While he was curious, he didn't ask. Zoet probably wouldn't appreciate his prying questions, unless he was asking about the city itself (she seemed to be taking her role as his guide in a very serious and mildly smug manner), and despite her reassurances, he was still wary of her breaking any of his bones out of sheer annoyance.

"You don't need to pay me back," Zoet suddenly said, breaking him out of his thoughts.

"Huh?" Chaud asked, glancing at her.

"For the food, dumbass," Zoet snorted impatiently. "It's not that much anyway, so I don't give a damn. But if you wanna buy stuff on your own in this city, you'd better get your . . . what'd you call it?"

"Zenny," Chaud supplied.

"Yeah, that. Get it exchanged at the bureau after we're done with today's tour."

He nodded, and a few minutes later, a waitress came over with their orders and they tucked in. The seafood rice was quite literally that, while Zoet's spicy wings meal was apparently angry red chicken wings and fries. The wings looked extremely spicy and Chaud found himself being glad that the cashier hadn't tried to trick him into ordering the spiciest thing on the menu and had indeed offered something 'easy'.

Was this country's food similar to Namaste's? He doubted it was highly-focused on curry like that country was, but similar in the way that they used spice for a lot of foods.

oooo

After they were done in the Cultural District, they took the tramline to the Gate District, and Zoet took him straight through the Bomb Festival while expertly maneuvering through the crowds as if she did this every day of her life. Chaud had to fight to keep up with her, and when they eventually came into the square and the crowds thinned out a little bit, he heaved a sigh of relief.

Zoet, who heard the sigh, gave him a sideways glance. "Not too fond of crowds, are we?"

"No," Chaud replied tartly. "And I wouldn't peg you as the type to enjoy them either."

"I don't," Zoet said, merely raising an eyebrow at his tone. "Hence why I picked out the best route to avoid being touched by random strangers."

"Why didn't we just avoid the main street entirely?" Chaud demanded, exasperated, as they came up to the entrance of the Gate District's Sun Pyramid.

"Cus then we'd have to double back to get here," Zoet bluntly informed him. "And to do that, it'd mean fighting through thicker crowds. Honestly, brat, do you know nothing about festivals? You think this is packed? You have seen nothing. You are Jon Snow. You know nothing. Now, c'mon, time for the Gate District's Sun Pyramid."

"Who's Jon Snow?" Chaud asked ProtoMan as he followed her inside.

"A character in a book series that you're not old enough to read," ProtoMan explained.

The Gate District's Sun Pyramid was far different to the ones he'd seen so far - while the Jungle District's was a market and the Cultural District's was an exhibition, the Gate District was instead something similar to a throne room, although there was no throne. This room seemed somehow smaller than the others as well, and it took Chaud a moment to realise why.

There were desks set along the walls, and behind those desks were doors leading into rooms with blinds pulled down over large windows. The blinds were most likely for privacy rather than to keep the sun out of the room, seeing as they were both indoors and far underground.

"The Gate District uses this pyramid as their bank," Zoet explained. "It's called the Pyramid Bank. Creative, I know, but it's simple enough to remember. Better than those freaks in the Historical District, anyway."

"If this is a bank, would they have a currency exchange service here?" ProtoMan asked curiously.

"Not as far as I'm aware," Zoet replied dismissively.

"It is best to exchange your money at the bureau, even if the Pyramid Bank does have an exchange service," Virus told Chaud and ProtoMan. "This is not because the Pyramid Bank are not good at their jobs, but because the bureau is more used to currency exchange and therefore more efficient at it."

"There's not much else to check out in the Gate District, unless you wanna go and see some of the book shops they have here," Zoet said, half-dragging Chaud out of the pyramid. "Do that on your own time though, they're awesome but they're hard to find, though I for one am looking forward to watching your struggles."

"Gee, thanks," Chaud said flatly. "What would I ever do without you."

"Most likely you'd die, now hurry up, the Gondola ride to the first station is two hours from Nowhere to the marina and I'd rather spend as little time as possible in a tiny boat with you."

You're not such pleasant company yourself, Chaud silently replied.

oooo

The two hours it took to get to the first Gondola station were spent mainly in silence - for Chaud, it was somewhat awkward, but he didn't know how Zoet saw the silence. Maybe she enjoyed it, though he couldn't really tell since she spent most of her time staring at the supports on the roof and walls of the tunnel with such intensity that Chaud could imagine them bursting into flames.

He thought she was staring at the supports to make it look as though she was busy, but when they got off the Gondola, she went straight over to one of the security team people and informed them about several cracks and breaks she'd spotted throughout the tunnel.

"It's also the job of the Underground NetBattlers to inform the security team about any defects they see in the city's supports, along with the entrance supports," Flight said, from Chaud's PET.

"What are you doing in my PET?" Chaud asked her, confused.

"Zoet said you looked confused - you still do, actually - so she sent me over to explain."

"Oh," was all he could think to say.

That was . . . surprisingly nice of her. The thought did cross his mind that maybe Zoet had just gotten tired of explaining everything to him, but she didn't have to go through the effort of sending Flight over; she could've easily just let him continue to be confused.

Once Zoet was done talking with the security team, they went outside to the docks.

For several moments he was completely blinded - having spent an almost full two days in Nowhere, he'd gotten used to artificial light and the natural light was startling - so he had to stay still, eyes screwed up against the sun. Not to mention the sudden lack of cool air was just as bad. Maybe Lan had been right, this place certainly did feel like a furnace; at least compared to the underground city.

He finally got used to the sun again, and looked around for Zoet. He'd expected her to just take off and leave him, but to his surprise, she was still standing next to him.

She'd put on a pair of reflective sunglasses and was watching him, arms crossed, but she didn't appear to be impatient.

"Why are you wearing those?" Chaud asked her.

"I live underground, idiot. Natural sunlight hurts my eyes," Zoet replied somewhat irritably.

He was about to point out that she lived with artificial light twenty-four-seven, but then he'd be hypocritical since he'd just been blinded by the very same thing. And if that was how he reacted after two days underground, it would certainly be even worse for an actual native of the city.

That one probably one drawback of living underground, he supposed, but then the pros did outweigh the cons.

"I don't normally come out here," Zoet went on, taking off past the Gondola station's shack. "I've only been out here, what, maybe three times in my entire life? Twice my mom wanted to show me some stuff out here, and the third time was my customary tour of the marina when I joined the Underground NetBattlers."

"Kinda like what we're doing now!" Flight chirped.

Zoet nodded her agreement. "And every single time I come out here, it hurts my eyes, so I stick on my sunglasses. Most people in this city do. Those that don't are the ones who come up here on a regular basis, or they weren't born in the city and are used to natural sunlight."

"What was it like the first time you saw natural sunlight?" Chaud asked her, curious.

"Painful. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to look directly at the damn thing. Nearly blinded me." She looked faintly disgusted, but whether that disgust was directed at the sun for almost blinding her or herself for being such an idiot, Chaud didn't know. He suspected it was a little bit of both.

They stepped off the wooden planks of the docks and onto a wide path running alongside the towering cliffs to their right. At first he thought the path was some sort of strange yellow rock, mainly because of the cliffs being almost the exact same colour, but when his foot sank into it, he realised it was sand.

The path was a beach, and it curved inwards around the corner of the cliffs up ahead.

"This is the Cliff path," Zoet told him as they walked. "It's a ten minute walk from the Gondola station to the marina, and this is the 'main path' so to speak. It's what most civilians use if they want to get to the marina. Normally the Underground NetBattlers use a different entrance, but today we're showing you the civilian route because it's the easiest to use."

"You will see the other entrance if Zoet is assigned a mission in the marina," Virus said. "If this does not happen within an acceptable time period, we will you show on a day off."

It took several minutes to walk along the path. When they turned the corner, more of the path was revealed - as was the marina itself, which was almost as big as one of the districts in Nowhere. The marina looked more like a small city rather than what he knew as a marina, but then he supposed to definition depended on the country. He wouldn't be surprised if some people actually lived in the marina, given its size.

"The marina is kinda like the aquatic version of the Science District, but it's not as big, thank god," Zoet explained. "I don't know the specific details of what the marina does, nor do I actually care, but basically it's everything fish. Fishing, marine biology, marine restoration, and so on."

"Marine restoration?"

Before Zoet could give him a cutting response, Virus spoke up. "The bombing that decimated the old city also impacted the ocean, despite the city being three miles away from it. This was mainly due to wind blowing the toxicity out over the ocean, which in turn destroyed much of the natural habitats of fish and plants. Scientists who work in the marina have been working on marine restoration for the past several decades, attempting to restore the ocean to what it used to be. It is going quite well, although the restoration is far from complete. The restoration is the main project in the marina."

"That's why Mythril is stationed here almost permanently," Flight said. "If viruses or other enemies got in and destroyed the marina's cyberworld, decades of work would go down the drain. So basically, Mythril's the first and last line of defence for the marina's cyberworld - everyone else is stationed here in shifts of four hours, five operatives at a time. At least two of those operatives have to be part of the DoubleNavi program."

"There's also an age limit to the shifts," Zoet added. "Only operatives eighteen and over are given shifts in the marina, so younger recruits like me only ever go into the marina when we've got a mission there. They take the defence of this place really seriously, so they only use experienced operatives."

"So we won't be getting any four-hour-shifts here, then," Chaud mused. "Do people live in the marina?"

"No," Zoet answered. "It might seem a bit impractical, but most people in Nowhere prefer to live within the city itself, no matter where they work. Not having a ceiling over your head all the time is . . . unsettling." As she spoke, she glanced at the sky, frowning a little.

Chaud couldn't see much of her expression anymore, due to her sunglasses, but he'd have to be completely stupid not to guess that she was extremely uncomfortable being out here like this. No wonder she'd only been outside the city a few times before.

"Anyway," Zoet said firmly, turning away from the sky so suddenly that Chaud was almost surprised her neck didn't snap, "time for a tour of the marina. It's a lot like the Science District in looks, but like I said it's basically just fish, so it's not the exact same. It's also the second-smallest district, the smallest being the Gate District."

OOOOOO

I never actually intended to show you the marina itself until they get a mission there - don't worry, they will get a mission there - but I still kinda feel tacky just cutting it off before we get to see what it's like in there.

But Zoet did say that it's a lot like the Science District, so for now, just take that image and add in a bunch of marine stuff. I know a marina is more like a massive collection of docks or whatever, but I felt like Nowhere City would probably do something completely different, so Chaud's 'maybe their definition is different' idea is actually more or less correct.

Anyway, moving on, the districts themselves! I promised you guys a map, and a map I shall give you.

/026mkj34tsh1

The path that Zoet and Chaud followed is fairly obvious from here, and next chapter we'll get to see what the other districts do and what they look like, although we've already somewhat explored the Historical District - but not entirely, and we have yet to see the interior of that particular Sun Pyramid, so there we go.

Also, for those of you wondering, Chaud's inability to read anything in Savaron may or may not turn out to be a plot point. It might end up being a major one or just a minor one, or it might end up becoming a running gag (because he has ProtoMan to translate for him) like his habit of getting lost, but either way it'll be mentioned a lot. I won't focus on Lan's inability to read Savaron because he isn't going to be focused on it, he's too worried about MegaMan at the moment.

Speaking of Lan and MegaMan, I've kind of accidentally shunted the two of them to the side when I've said that I've decided to make them main characters as well. While it is true that I want him and MegaMan to be main characters, most of the plot that I have ideas for actually centre around Chaud and ProtoMan's adventures with the Underground NetBattlers, so I may end up having to drop Lan and MegaMan to side-character status, though I'm still giving them the occasional POVs.

As stated, I'm still showing you Virus and Flight's profiles, so here we go.

/01ndi1falgd8

There's Virus.

/0784ncmxtbv

There's Flight.

(If these links don't work/can't be seen, just PM me for the links and I'll give them to you personally, I'll be more than happy to!)

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