I swear to god there's something I was gonna say here, but I completely forgot what it was . . .
Ugh, curse my shitty memory. I'm sure I'll remember it halfway through writing this chapter and then it'll be too late, cus I won't be able to do another AN until I'm done here.
Whatever. Profiles and stuff!
/01ndi1falgd8
Virus.
/0784ncmxtbv
Flight.
/026mkj34tsh1
The map.
/01lqxk014x6q
And the battle suit.
Have I mentioned that I based the battle suit's design slightly on MegaMan? You can tell by the gloves and boots mainly, the way there's a thicker bit at the ends.
(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!)
So, time to get into this chapter. Fair warning, Chaud's struggles with Lan and the others aren't over yet, but it'll be fixed at some point. Just not in this chapter.
I don't own MegaMan Battle Network/NT Warrior, on with the show!
OOOOOO
"I've got a day off tomorrow," Zoet announced, as she and Chaud walked out of the battle suit storage room. They'd just finished changing back into their normal clothes after that day's mission, which had taken all day purely because the client kept sending them to every single district possible.
"So you won't wake me up at ungodly hours," Chaud murmured.
"What's the point? You're shadowing me, idiot, if I have a day off then so do you," Zoet replied with a scoff.
"Right," he said flatly.
Zoet glanced at him, and then stopped walking. Chaud kept going for a couple of steps before he realised she'd stopped, and he turned to face her, confused.
"Alright, spill," Zoet ordered.
"What?"
"You've been moping around like a wet blanket all week," Zoet said bluntly. "At first I thought maybe you were just bored with all these missions, since you're an 'Official' - whatever that means - in your own country. But then I remembered that you'd actually enjoyed the Kitty virus incident, however stupid the circumstances were, so that obviously wasn't the problem. The point is, you've been acting like someone's trodden on your tail and it's still sore. What's wrong with you and why the hell have you not fixed it yet?"
"Would you even care anyway?" Chaud muttered. "You'd probably just call me an idiot and tell me to grow up or something. Besides, it's not like you can help, Lan and the others don't even know you exist - you or the Underground NetBattlers."
"Lan? That Hikari brat?" Zoet asked. Chaud nodded, and she rolled her eyes. "Lemme guess, he called you names and yelled at you, and you're losing your skunk-hair over it."
"Well . . . some of that's true . . ." Chaud admitted. "What's up with the 'skunk-hair' comment, though?"
"You have hair like a skunk. Skunk-boy," Zoet pointed out.
Chaud had gotten so used to people referred to his hair as an egg that he'd never actually considered what else people might call it. He kind of liked skunk better, though he'd never admit that where anyone could hear him. Best keep it to himself, then, otherwise he'd start getting stink jokes from everyone instead of egg jokes.
But that wasn't the problem here.
"So what's wrong?" Zoet went right back to demanding again. "At the very least I'd like to know why my unwanted partner is being a mopey little shit. I liked you better when you were acting like a five-year-old in the middle of a sugar rush, at least then I could impress you, but now you're just . . . meh."
"Thanks," Chaud said flatly. "I'm so glad for the concern."
"Sarcasm is my thing, now spill."
He stared her down for a moment or two, hoping that his silence would discourage her, but Zoet just stared right back and didn't move an inch, not even to blink. With a sigh, he decided to just do as she said - it was easier and a lot less awkward than trying to stare down someone who could probably out-stare a statue.
"Can we not do this where anyone could hear?" he asked, glancing around. There was no one else in the corridor at the moment, but with the amount of people he saw around HQ, there was bound to be someone who would show up at the worst possible moment.
"Fine," Zoet agreed, though she sounded a bit pissed about it. "We'll go to my common room. Move."
She called it her common room because she and her Navis were basically the only people who used it. It seemed that most other operatives had an unspoken agreement to not use that common room as well, so the idea was only reinforced. Good for them because it meant he could talk without having to worry about anyone barging in, aside from Arin, who was probably the only person who could get away with barging in on Zoet's common room.
Just like always, the common room was empty when they got there, and Chaud and Zoet sat at the computer table at the back of the room. They jacked their Navis into the monitor on the wall and Virus, Flight, and ProtoMan appeared on the screen.
Virus, as always, had no face and therefore was difficult to read. Flight looked mildly curious, and ProtoMan just looked extremely worried, like he'd been for the past week following the argument.
"After the Kitty virus thing," Chaud began, "I went back to the hotel me and everyone else are staying at. But when I met up with Lan and everyone else, he - Lan - started yelling at me. They were all mad at me, except for Dr. Hikari and Haruka, and maybe Tory, and they were just yelling at me, saying that I didn't care about MegaMan and demanding an explanation for what I've been doing and . . . and I couldn't explain myself, not without telling them about all this." He waved his hand around the room as he spoke, gesturing to the entire HQ by proxy. "I guess it didn't help that I got angry too, but they weren't exactly being fair - no one gave me a chance to even try to explain myself, and Lan was . . ."
"Unreasonable," ProtoMan put in when he fell silent. "That's the word you're looking for. I'm sure his anger is justified in his own mind, but . . . from our perspective, it was unjust."
"Are you telling me why you're moping or are you trying to psychoanalyse your dumb friend?" Zoet deadpanned.
Chaud ignored her sarcasm. "Haruka broke up the fight - it wasn't much of one, all we were doing was yelling, no one had actually started hitting me yet, but I don't think it would've taken much for a proper fight to break out. And, well, after that . . . we kind of avoided each other, or I avoided everyone else and they ignored me. It's been a week and no one except for Dr. Hikari and Haruka have even spoken to me, not even to say good morning or anything. It . . . kinda makes dinner really awkward."
Zoet glanced at ProtoMan for an explanation.
"Lan and his friends talk among themselves, and if Chaud tries to join in, they either ignore him completely or just glare until he gives up," the red-clad Navi sighed. "Dr. Hikari and Mrs. Hikari will sometimes try to mediate, but it never works."
"I've tried saying sorry," Chaud mumbled, slumping in his chair. "I tried talking to them, I tried sending them emails, leaving notes, everything I could think of. But nothing works. They just ignore me no matter what I do. I . . . I don't know what else to do."
"That's it?"
Chaud went still, and ProtoMan stifled a gasp.
Zoet went on. "I don't see why you're letting this affect you so much," she said. "Doesn't sound like much to me, anyway. Your friends yelled at you, so what? Didn't they yell at you before anyway? What's so different between then and now?"
"Well . . ." Mind whirling in shock, Chaud had to take a few moments to collect his thoughts in order to try and explain it to her. He'd expected a 'do I look like I care' type of reaction from Zoet, but he hadn't expected her to be so savage about it. "It's . . . I like being friends with them. They're the first human friends I've ever had, the first people to actually treat me like a person instead of . . ."
"Instead of . . .?" Zoet prompted, raising an eyebrow. Other than that, her facial expression didn't change at all. Clearly she didn't care one bit and was just asking out of sheer curiousity.
Chaud didn't reply to her prompt directly. "A-and I don't want to lose them over something I can't control," he went on. "If . . . if I could tell them about all this, it might help, but I can't tell them."
"I'm not sure it would help even if you could tell them," ProtoMan pointed out sadly. "It may actually end up fuelling the fire even more."
Chaud nodded in depressed agreement. Things had really spiralled out of his control by now, and he wasn't sure there was anything he could do to fix this. If he'd been who he was before he'd met Lan and the others, maybe he wouldn't have cared as much, but he wasn't and he actually wanted to stay friends with them.
Even if they hated him.
"So, let me get this straight," Zoet said, leaning forward to peer at him. "You've been moping around for an entire week because you got into a bad argument with your friends?"
"Well, it sounds stupid when you say it like that," Chaud muttered.
"Is it stupid. You're stupid. Why are you even letting this affect you?" she asked again. "I decided long ago that I don't give a damn how other people see me, and if they have an issue with it, I'll break their faces."
"Not everyone's the same as you, Zoet," Flight reminded her.
"They bloody should be, then."
"I'm not like you," Chaud protested, drawing her attention. "Maybe I was at some point, but I'm different now, and I don't want to lose my friends over a misunderstanding as dumb as this."
"Right," Zoet said flatly. She stood up and shrugged. "Well, it's not my-"
"-not your problem, yeah, I know," Chaud sighed. He also stood, but kept his gaze fixed on the floor, even as he jacked ProtoMan out of the monitor. "Is anything ever your problem?"
Zoet didn't answer him. After a moment, he sighed again, and started towards the door.
"I'll see you in a couple of days," he muttered as he passed her. He didn't look to see what expression she had.
oooo
The ride to the Haven District gave him a chance to think in relative peace, although he mostly just went over that conversation again and again, wondering whether or not he'd somehow screwed it up. Somehow he felt like he did - maybe walking away like that hadn't been a good idea, but he'd been too drained lately to worry about offending Zoet and getting his bones broken as a result.
ProtoMan had been oddly quiet as well, although typically it was Chaud who talked more than his Navi. But usually after something like this, ProtoMan would be talking his ears off, trying to make Chaud feel better.
" . . . You can say it if you want," Chaud mumbled.
ProtoMan looked up at him from the screen of the PET, which was resting loosely in Chaud's hands. "What do you mean?" he asked.
Looked like he was gonna have to say it then.
"I screwed up," Chaud said. "With MegaMan, with my friends, with Zoet, with everything. I am the world's biggest screw-up and it's not even funny anymore."
"It was never funny to start off with," ProtoMan pointed out mildly. "And you are most certainly not a screw-up. You make mistakes, just like anyone else - that's what it is to be human, Chaud. Well, as far as I know, anyway. I'm just a NetNavi, we're perfect in every way possible."
Despite his drained feelings and the anxiety hanging over him like a storm cloud, Chaud couldn't help but smile.
"I swear you never had a sense of humour before," he said, leaning back. ProtoMan always knew what to say and how to distract him. He appreciated that a lot. "But thanks."
"You're welcome," ProtoMan replied. "And try not to worry too much about Lan and the others. It'll get sorted out eventually, somehow. All you can do until then is try."
"And what about Zoet?"
"She's thick-skinned, I'm pretty sure she can take it," ProtoMan dismissed. "Didn't she say that she'd decided not to care how others see her?"
"Deciding not to care and actually putting it into practice are completely different," Chaud reminded him. His tone turned bitter. "Like me 'letting' this affect me."
"That was a little unfair of her to say," ProtoMan admitted, "but she does have a point."
Chaud looked at him, surprised, and ProtoMan shifted uncomfortably.
"Perhaps not in the way Zoet said it," ProtoMan went on. "But you are letting all of this affect you more than it normally would. You've argued with Lan and everyone else in the past, right?"
"Well, yes," Chaud agreed. "But it was never this bad, and it was never over a misunderstanding . . ."
"True," ProtoMan said. "And misunderstandings almost always get cleared up in the end, especially ones like this. It'll be fine, you'll see. Just give it some time. They can't ignore you forever, after all."
"Yeah . . ." Chaud sighed once again, and looked at his Navi with a small smile. "Thank you, ProtoMan. Really. You're my best friend, you know that?"
"I do," ProtoMan replied, actually grinning out of sheer joy. "And you are my best friend."
With his heart feeling lighter than it had been all week, Chaud and ProtoMan shared a comfortable silence throughout the rest of the journey on the tram, and when they got to the Haven District, they discussed what they could do tomorrow. Since it was a day off, they could go basically anywhere, maybe explore some places more thoroughly (since Zoet's whirlwind tour hadn't given him much oppertunity and the missions they'd done since then were only in specific places), or even go to the Bomb Festival and see it properly.
Even though he shied away at the thought of facing that bustling crowd again, Chaud was interested. He wanted to see what a festival looked like for these people, and ProtoMan agreed.
But then his sort-of happy mood evaporated when he got back to the hotel and met Lan and Dr. Hikari outside.
Dr. Hikari gave him a friendly nod, but Lan just ignored him completely.
"How was it today?" Chaud asked them, glancing at Lan.
"We almost had the method finished, but the dummy Navi we were using broke down into data fragments almost as soon as we were near completion," Dr. Hikari said, shaking his head. "We've at least got the first step towards reconstruction finished, though."
"That's great!" Chaud exclaimed. "How many steps do you think you'll need to fix MegaMan?"
"No one's entirely certain yet, but Professor Hestia has estimated about ten," Dr. Hikari replied cheerfully. "That's less than I thought it would be, considering the severity of the damage. Of course, it's just an estimate, so for all we know the number of steps needed for a proper method may be more or less depending on what we need to do."
"However many steps there are, I'm confident you'll figure it out," Chaud assured him.
Dr. Hikari nodded and thanked him, and, with a quick glance at Lan, led the way into the hotel.
"How's MegaMan?" Chaud asked Lan.
No reply.
"Is he still quiet?" Chaud pressed, trying to draw out some sort of reaction. Anything would do, even if it was just Lan telling him to get lost - anything was better than this horrible silence.
But Lan just kept staring straight ahead as if Chaud wasn't even there.
Chaud swallowed his urge to start wailing like a child and got into the lift, keeping Dr. Hikari between himself and Lan. He tried to ignore the concerned glances the scientist was shooting his way, and instead focused on his plans for tomorrow, which suddenly seemed hollow.
oooo
Lan had been ignoring Chaud all week, and he was drowning in guilt because of it.
In the heat of the moment, he'd said everything that was on his mind - or most of it, anyway - and had leaped to conclusions that, when he'd had a chance to think about it, were completely and utterly unreasonable. Most of his anger towards Chaud was, he felt, still justified, but he did regret some of what he'd said. All Lan could think about afterwards was the look on Chaud's face, as if someone had just murdered his best friend right in front of his eyes and then laughed in his face.
But he couldn't apologise.
For one thing, it would be too awkward to apologise now, after he and his friends had been ignoring Chaud for the past week. For another, Lan was simply too stubborn to apologise.
That's no excuse! He could just imagine MegaMan's scolding. Chaud's your friend and you're treating him horribly. He's tried to reach out, why can't you? And all of this just because you're stressed and you need something to take it out on!
It's not like I can take it back, Lan argued. The damage is done, there's nothing I can do now. He can keep saying sorry all he wants, but it still doesn't change the fact that he's still going off on his own, or that he used my brother as an excuse.
The imaginary MegaMan didn't respond, and Lan sighed.
He rolled over onto his side, looking at the stand beside the bed in his hotel room. His PET was resting there, and he'd shut it down to give MegaMan a chance to recharge, not that he actually needed it. Even after over two weeks, he hadn't moved or said a word since finding out he couldn't walk anymore.
But we're going to fix that, Lan thought. Chaud could do whatever he liked, MegaMan was the one with the real problem here.
Yet the sour feeling of guilt still churned his stomach.
Just yesterday, Chaud had tried - again - to ask how MegaMan was doing after Lan and Dad had gotten back from the Navi Research Labs. Lan had completely ignored him, and even though a few days ago he would have been heartlessly pleased when Chaud had given up, he'd only felt dirty and horrible and wretched.
This was stupid. Lan had MegaMan to worry about, he couldn't worry about Chaud as well.
He muttered to himself in frustration, and slid off the bed. Maybe a walk would do him some good. He glanced at his PET but decided to leave it there - no point in waking MegaMan up for a simple walk, after all - and went over to the door and opened it.
Only to close it when he spotted Chaud coming out of his own room opposite Lan's.
After a moment, Lan dared to open the door again - just a crack, enough to see through but not enough for anyone to notice that the door was open - and watched Chaud lock his own door with one hand, the other holding onto his PET.
"I don't get it," Chaud muttered, loud enough for Lan to hear - he was talking to ProtoMan, but was trying to be quiet about it. Sneaking off again, maybe? "Zoet said we had a day off today. So why send an email all of a sudden?"
Zoet? Lan wondered. That didn't even sound like a word, nevermind a name.
"Maybe something came up," ProtoMan suggested.
"You don't seriously think Zoet, of all people, would ask me for help?"
ProtoMan was silent for a moment.
"Alright, maybe not," he admitted eventually.
"Well, don't be so quick to agree with me," Chaud muttered as he walked off in the direction of the lift.
Lan made a split-second decision, and darted after him. He couldn't go down the same lift, and he didn't want to risk using another one in case he got there before Chaud or at the exact same time, but the stairs were still an option - provided Lan was willing to cheat.
He slid down the banister of the stairs, startling a cleaner making his way up, and was at the bottom floor in record time. He opened the door a little, checking whether Chaud had made it down yet, and ducked back just as Chaud passed by the door.
Lan opened the door again and spied a good hiding spot just a few feet away, a large box that could have been a bin but probably wasn't since it didn't have any visible openings. Some sort of table, then? Well, whatever it was, he snuck over to it and peered around it, searching for Chaud until he found him.
There he was, standing in front of a messy-haired boy wearing a dark red sleeveless hoodie and strange wireless headphones around his neck.
"I thought you said we had a day off today," Chaud said. Luckily the box thing was close enough that Lan could hear what they were saying without having to creep closer.
"We do," the boy with the headphones said. "But I came here to give you this."
Up until that moment, Lan hadn't noticed that the boy had one hand hidden behind his back. As he watched, the boy pulled his hand out, and revealed a weird stick-thing with a really long ribbon attached to it. The ribbon was a bright red, almost the same colour as ProtoMan.
Chaud looked at the ribbon suspiciously, and then glanced at the boy.
"What's this?" he asked warily.
The boy rolled his eyes. "It's a peace offering, you idiot," he said sharply, though it was easy to tell he was restraining himself from using a more hurtful tone.
Lan expected Chaud to snap at the boy for calling him an idiot, but to his surprise that wasn't what happened. Just who was this person, who could apparently get away with insulting Chaud so casually?
"Why?" Chaud asked.
The boy pursed his lips briefly, and then sighed irritably. "Look, about yesterday . . . Flight and Virus told me off for it. They said I was the one being an idiot, a selfish idiot at that, and they made me think about it, and I decided that they're right and I was being very, very disrespectful."
"You're always disrespectful," Chaud pointed out.
"True," the boy admitted. "But that was a different kind of disrespect. It was just mean. So I got you this as a peace offering, because I will be the first to admit that I suck at apologies."
"Um, alright," Chaud said slowly, taking the ribbon-on-a-stick and playing with the ribbon part absentmindedly. "But why a ribbon streamer?"
Oh, so that was what it was called. That was good to know.
"You wouldn't stop looking at the damn things when we were on patrol in the Gate District the other day," the boy said bluntly. "You're a soppy little shit who apparently loves ribbon streamers for some ungodly reason, so there you go."
"I'm not soppy," Chaud protested, though he didn't sound too offended. That was strange, normally anyone who insulted him was liable to get their faces punched or something.
Just who was this boy?
"As for why I emailed you," the boy went on, "I decided it was better than breaking into your room like always."
Wait, what? Lan almost said the words out loud from shock.
"You emailed me and gave me a ribbon streamer as a peace offering just to apologise?" Chaud wondered.
" . . . Not exactly."
"So there is something else," Chaud said.
The boy shook his head. "Not in the way you're thinking. We do have a day off today, so no missions - not from the board or from Kris - but I figured I may as well try making up for yesterday in a better way than just giving you a crappy little ribbon thing."
Missions? So that meant Chaud was here on Official business. The knowledge made Lan's guilt even worse than before, even though he'd been angry about it.
"We're going to the festival," the boy announced.
Chaud straightened up in surprise. "Really? You actually want to go there?" he asked. "I thought you didn't care for the crowds."
"I don't, I hate them," the boy agreed. "But if that's what it'll take for you to start feeling better, well, fine. I can't have you moping around like a wet blanket for the entire time you're here. And . . ."
"And?" Chaud prompted.
The boy looked faintly embarrassed, and incredibly annoyed. "And I realised that I actually do care what's wrong with you, even if I said otherwise," he muttered. "I consider you . . . a friend." He dragged the word out like it was a curse or something, but for some reason, it made Chaud smile.
Lan hadn't seen him smile all week. He'd just looked utterly miserable.
"Arin was right," he said. "You really do care more than you let on."
The boy reacted as though Chaud had just said something unforgivable. "I most certainly do not!" he snapped.
Chaud just laughed, surprising Lan even further. "Yes you do!" he gleefully declared. "You act all tough and rude, but underneath it all, you're just a really big softie, huh?"
"Take that back or I'll claw your eyes out," the boy barked.
"No you won't," Chaud retorted, still laughing.
The boy sighed heavily, and looked up at the ceiling like he was asking a higher power for help. "Having feelings is ruining my reputation of being a heartless bitch," he complained.
"If you were ever heartless to start off with," Chaud pointed out, and the boy glared at him.
"Whatever. Are you ready to go now or do you need some time to get ready?" the boy demanded.
Chaud held up his ribbon streamer. "I'm fine to go now, just let me put this-"
But the boy shook his head. "Don't bother," he said. "Take it with you, there should be a workshop at the festival that teaches you how to use the thing. You do wanna learn how to use a ribbon streamer, right?"
"I admit the thought had crossed my mind more than once," Chaud said, with no trace of sarcasm at all.
"Good, then let's get moving. And, also . . ." The boy hesitated for a split second, and then continued speaking. "The thing about Lan and your friends. It really isn't my problem, but if you ever need any help - with anything, not just them - all you gotta do is ask. I can't guarantee I'll be happy about it, or that I'll actually help, but I'm offering."
Chaud's smile was softer this time. "Thank you, Zoet," he said. "That's all I can ask of you, I guess."
"Yeah, well-" The boy broke off abruptly, and then continued in a less hostile tone. "I'll try to help you. Can't have my partner being a wet blanket after all."
"You don't need to try so hard for me," Chaud told him, as they started out of the front doors of the hotel lobby.
"Screw you, brat, I don't do anything half-assed and I sure as hell am not about to . . ."
Lan didn't hear the rest of what the boy - what Zoet - said, because the doors closed behind them and suddenly they were gone.
Without ever knowing that their entire conversation had been overheard by the very person who had probably caused all of this. And he most definitely was the cause, since apparently Chaud had spent a lot of time in this 'Zoet's' company, long enough that he'd noticed a change in Chaud's behaviour, and Chaud had told him everything.
This knowledge wasn't helping the pit in his stomach get any less deeper. It was just making it worse.
Dammit, Chaud, Lan cursed the dual-haired boy. What is it with you and making everything so insanely difficult?
He couldn't even hate Chaud without feeling guilty anymore.
OOOOOO
So yeah, Chaud's not the only one who's feeling despondent over the argument from the previous chapter. And we also get to see a bit of Zoet's heartless side, and then her more heartful side, because yeah, as Chaud and Arin said, she does care more than she lets on.
Little bit of trivia about her - if she considers you a friend, she'll be the most clingy motherfucker ever. Not literally clingy, but clingy in a 'you hurt my friend I murder you' kind of way. The only reason she hasn't gone after Lan and the others yet is because of the secrecy thing, and also because Chaud still considers them to be his friends even if they currently hate his guts.
Yeah, Chaud's a bit OOC at this point, but I'm only writing him how I need him to be for the purposes of this story. He's still more or less the same, just more chill because we've got Zoet handling the whole 'I am the queen of rudeness' thing, and Lan is just weird at the moment, so there we go.
We also get some brotherly ProtoMan - who I kinda see as a big brother for Chaud, mainly because of the anime. I love those kind of relationships, they're always adorable as hell.
And just in case anyone wants to start shipping them, Zoet is NOT a love interest for Chaud.
This is purely friendship, because females and males can actually be friends, and I don't care much for shipping my own OCs with canon characters, even if they happen to be my favourites.
Speaking of favourites, you know how a few chapters ago I said MegaMan was my favourite? Well, now it's Chaud. MegaMan is officially my second-favourite Battle Network/NT Warrior character, and Chaud is number one, because for some reason I seem to have a thing for assholes with tragic pasts.
Plus his hair is like . . . it's awesome, man. He's either a literal egghead or a skunk, and I think that's wonderful. Plus I love white hair.
So naturally, with him now officially being my favourite, he's also gonna be prone to various torture plots. Fortunately for him the plot of this story has already been laid out and, while this little sub-plot here is extremely hurtful for him, there's not really much to break his twelve-year-old-ass.
I'm also still unsure of how old Lan, Chaud, and everyone else are supposed to be, which was the main reason why I was leaving the timeframe of this story vague, but I've read somewhere that Chaud is twelve, so that's what I'm going with. That also means he's three years younger than Zoet, actually, so she's still justified in calling him a brat.
Anyway, profiles.
/01ndi1falgd8
Virus.
/0784ncmxtbv
Flight.
/026mkj34tsh1
The map.
/01lqxk014x6q
And the battle suit.
(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!)
I did consider solving this sub-plot of Lan and the others hating Chaud in the next chapter, but since we've already had Zoet going 'surprise, I actually give a shit', I decided not to bother.
So instead I'm gonna write Chaud and Zoet doing a random mission. It's one that I've been planning on writing at some point anyway, but I wasn't sure where I could stick it, and I decided to put it there.
Naturally this means that next chapter will end up being an all-Chaud chapter, bar a POV switch to ProtoMan if necessary or whatever.
Read and review!