p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"Chapter 11: Revelations/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"It was indeed Yai Ayano from Ayano Tech with the monochromatic hair boy. "Oh, you aren't Lan's girlfriend, unless has finally exited the closet." I never knew that these people actually knew me so well, at some point I thought that Lan was going to reveal that he was gay. One would think that with all of the hints Maylu gave him during elementary and middle school, he would be dating her by now but that doesn't seem to be the case. "Hey it's you from the laboratory," I head the kid reply as he had the biggest revelation in the world. "How's life treating you since then?" he asked earning looks of terror from the female and male. "Where's Chaud and what have you done with him?" Lan asked. I'm guessing he isn't like this normally, but I simply replied with a straight forward answer, "As good as it should have been." It probably sounded darker than I intended as he simply replied, "I see... anyways. I was looking for you, Dr. Hikari says that he wants to see you. The results are in and some don't look so good..." I sighed they must have found some of the horrible side effects of the 'treatments' that I was given in the cold soggy place. "It's fine I'll go afterwards." The atmosphere was serious as the simple words were exchanged. Our lingo fell on the deaf ears of Lan and Yai, but deciphered by Chaud immediately. "Anyways," began Lan uncomfortably, "Let's go pick up Maylu. She's most likely doing homework with Sakura and judging by the time, they should be finished." We all nodded and continued to speak about interest such as new games, the next PET, upcoming net battles and so on. "Hey Chaud are you joining the net Grand Prix?" Lan asked excitedly, as they always seem to be the last ones to battle, always making it to the news. "I don't know," he began, "There doesn't seem to be much competition and fighting you over and over can get boring when we always finish in a draw..." Chaud never finished his sentence. "Have you seen him net battle?" Lan said pointing at me. I had told him that I was interested in joining the Grand Prix at a jab to participate in the world wide event. "I bet that he can beat you Protoman in contest of speed and power." Lan was getting worked up but I didn't let him continue, "Just because my net navi is rather fast and can cause quite a bit of damage separately, that doesn't mean that she can beat Protoman in a battle." Chaud raised an eyebrow, but I paid no attention to it. Right now my navi needed its rest in order to recover from the fight as I still haven't perfected the extra code yet./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"We arrived to Maylu's home and surprise surprise, Sakura was in there with her talking about who knows what. I was about to ring the doorbell when Lan stopped me. I turned to him and noticed an evil grin appear on his face. He whispered in my ear, oh this was gonna be good. Since Yai thought that I was a girl from behind, we were going to see if Maylu would also fall for it. Lan rang the doorbell to which Maylu answered cheerfully. "Heya Lan watcha doin?" she asked with a buoyant voice only to stop herself when she asked about me. "Lan, what's that girl doing there?" Oh great she actually fell for it and Lan coyly replied, "She's my girlfriend, Maylu meet..." She brushed past Lan and came up to me, "I don't care who you are, but you will stay away from Lan do you got that?" I didn't turn around instead I spoke, "Wow, I guess I owe you five bucks," I told Lan as I turned around. "Hi there, the name's Jonathan, pleased to meet ya!" She now turned to Lan and began to give chase to the pour boy, "Well it seems as if he won't be needing the five dollars to where he's going." I commented making both beings chuckle behind me. It was then when I heard Sakura come outside asking what was the commotion about. "Hey Sakura, don't worry Lan always gets out of these situations, I just wonder who's going to get it first Lan's face or his ass?"" this now caused the ones snickering beings to begin laughing and Sakura to chuckle. It took about five minutes for Maylu to return with Lan by pinching his ear./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"We all decided to go to a local restaurant and eat which was when Maylu finally brought up the question that even we didn't have an answer to. "So are you two together?" We both froze not really knowing how to answer the question. It was only yesterday that it happened, and it was also yesterday when we hinted to our feeling for each other. It wasn't official or anything... "Yes, yes we are." Sakura spoke out leaving me still frozen and in the dust. I heard Maylu curse under her breath, it has been about two months since I returned back to school and I hang out with Maylu, Sakura, Tory, and Sean at school. "Well I'm happy for both of you..." I could literally see her bulging vein on her forehead causing everyone to cower away from her leaving me and Sakura closest to her. I simply sighed and began to eat my food in silence. Everything began to mute around me, becoming white noise while my thoughts began to run wild. They were memories of me hanging out with a young boy whose face I couldn't make out. He was a boy who everybody referred to him as the the bipolar kid, he would be hyperactive and happy one moment then he would simply stop sit down and stare off into the sky. Although he had a negative nickname, still he seemed to be one of the most popular kids at where ever it was where my memories took me to. The scene continued to play out, I was looking up to the sky where the clouds had gathered, most likely rain clouds. I noticed that he sat next to me, "Are you always out here? I mean looking up to the sky above?" I simply replied yes never breaking my sight from the clouds almost as if I would miss something important. "I see..." We stayed silent for a while before I heard a voice break my floating thoughts./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""How could you Jonathan?" I heard the female voice ask. It took me a while to identify who it was until I saw Sakura almost in tears. "W-what happened?" I was honestly oblivious to the whole situation. "Don't act like you don't know, you said it pretty confident as well." She left the building running. I noticed that Lan was chuckling under his breath, "I cannot believe that you answered yes to the question Jonathan." I was confused what did I answer yes to? "I cannot believe that you would actually say that you would date Maylu over Sakura after Sakura proposed that you two are together." Now he was laughing, oh this was not good. I didn't think that I said the answer out loud while my thoughts ran. "Are you okay Jonathan?" this time it was Chaud to which I shook my head no. I got up and left the building beginning to feel a few raindrops fall overhead. I needed space to think, and to be away from Lan and his stupidity. I ran into somebody and merely excused myself before returning to my walk towards the nearby park. "Wait Jonathan." It was Chaud again, how did he get here so fast, no a better question how is it that I didn't notice him? I simply ignored it and continued to walk towards the park with Chaud in tow. We both sat down under a tree before he asked, "Tell me what is wrong." First time someone actually asked me this, I mean not even Sakura asks me what's wrong she demands for me to tell her everything. "I don't know," There was silence before I heard Chaud speak up again. "According to your medical record as composed by Dr. Hikari, there were some abnormalities in your thinking patterns. Mainly losing focus and assimilating to your thoughts completely..." That was what happened at the restaurant, "The way that these thoughts interacted with the machine, he said that they were most likely memories of your past, maybe a few that you lost, well during your time of being gone." I took this in and thought about it. "It's weird, because although you say memories, the things that seem familiar never happened... They seemed artificially made instead of my real memories." We continued to talk about the results, most of them were negative but in a bizarre way. "You blood studies show no record of a family ever recorded in time. Then there was also the fact that there are no records for a Johnathan Simmons, actually there never was a Simmons family..." I began to panic, then who am I? If I am not who I've thought who I was then what am I. More of these memories began to invade my mind. There was a sharp pain almost migraine like as thoughts such as people's skin falling off, others getting beheaded, and the most recent one is of a large vast desert. The pain was gone as quickly as it came. "Don't worry I'm fine, I think."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"The rain never let up that day as I walked home through the country side. The mud was thick and the road became narrow, not good. I slipped and fell into the ditch now full of scratches, mud and tiredness. I could barely keep my eyes open as I slowly drifted to a sea of comfort as I was shown a world where tall buildings were scare but open fields ruled the land. It was peaceful, I didn't want leave the place but I began to feel movement underneath me. It stirred me from the peaceful dream that I was having only to find myself a few steps from my house. I heard mumbling coming from the right side of me who was carrying me? "Come on almost there!" I heard the voice much more clearly, it was a girl, it was Sakura, but why her? She was reaching for the doorknob which was when I pulled myself away with all of the strength that I had left in me. "No.." I barely managed with my weak and raspy voice. "I'm sorry about what I said earlier, and even though you wouldn't believe me I wasn't answering the question regarding you and Maylu." I began to walk away before I felt her hand grab on to mine, "Please don't, Chaud told me about what happened, please don't go." She was practically begging for me to stay, either way I could either walk away nor towards the house, I collapsed once again from the extreme exhaustion that I was feeling. All I knew was that I was now inside a warm house sheltered from the rain./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"I don't know what time it was when I woke up I was met with a few eyes overseeing me awake. I noticed that it was Sakura, Tory, and Sean. "Finally you're awake!" I heard Tory exclaim followed by Sean. I chuckled lightly and then turned to Sakura who seemed to breath a sigh of relief. I heard her call others into the room which now included Maylu, Lan, Yai, and Chaud. "Something really interesting happened when you were out..." began Sakura grabbing my attention, "When Chaud and I found you, you began to attack us. Chaud had to hold you down to a certain point, then you Cross-fused." She paused looking rather scared, what is happening to me? "There wasn't a DA and I had to call one in order to bring you down." Chaud paused to look at Lan before continuing. "I have to give props to Lan, he had a point when he said that you could be a possible match for Protoman and I." Anyways he continued to explain that all of a sudden the CF broke leaving me on the ground unconscious. My navi was scanned while I was out and checked for errors or mutations in the code, but everything seemed fine. I reached over with my hand under the blanket to hold my sore arm, only to find it a bit for difficult to actually reach than normal, almost as if my arms grew a size. It was then when I hear my PET ring with the E-Mail notification and I noticed that it was from SciLabs./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"emThis message is to give you the full details of the test you took back when you came. Alien medication was found within you, embedded into your DNA that allows you to heal wounds that most humans would never heal. If any of the effects are found, do not panic as I thoroughly analyzed them and they are harmless to the human body. Also, regarding your thoughts and the process of, no serious trauma was found. However a new hormone we did find. We still have no name for it but it seems to be able to calm the brain under stress, we haven't found any horrible side effects to this yet as it was only a trace amount of it that was recorded with the scans we had of you. Anyways enjoy the rest of your night./em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"This proved the worst of my thoughts, they genetically mutated me slowly but surely. At first it was me being able to keep calm, I noticed it at me not jumping at any of the scenes of gore that played in my mind. Now the regeneration of my muscles that would never happen to a regular person without surgery right? They have sealed their fate, and I know that they will not enjoy any minute of it. I got out of bed and put some clothes on, grabbed my PET and walked out the door. I wanted to be angry, but I couldn't, the closest was uncomfort. I noticed that Tory and Sean were behind me wondering where I was going, I never replied I don't think anything had to be said. We were going to take the first train however it would take a while before it arrives, within that time Lan and his friends caught with us. "Where are you going?" I heard him ask once again not answering instead I just sat there waiting for the train to arrive which didn't actually take that long. Within five minutes we were on our way to the heart of Electopia. I had looked up the IP address that Circe had taken and found a vague area as to where they could be located, among them was a building said to be abandoned, but satellite images say otherwise. That was where I was going to first. Upon arriving Lan noticed a Curry shop and had to go to which many groaned. "Let him be, I never asked for any to come along, you go where you want to." A few left to go get Lan while Sean, Tory, Sakura, and Chaud stayed with me. "Okay now it seems that the ones who would get in the way left. Let's go." I continued to walk towards the building and surprise surprise, the door was fully operational and asked for a key code. I plugged Circe in and immediately the key scanner began to release smoke, destroyed. I walked in and the first thing I noticed where surveillance cameras. "I'll have Protoman handle these," Chaud responded as he plugged in his net navi into the system, now leaving the whole security system powered off. "Sean, Tory, I need you to bring down the firewalls that are within the building's servers." They nodded and headed off to complete their jobs. We made our way to the second, then third, fourth, and finally fifth floor of the building to find it completely empty. I was about to turn around when I heard my PET beep. "Hey Johnathan, there seems to be a portal to another section in this area of the net, should we go in?" Interesting, I told them to hold off as we made our way to the area they pointed to. Chaud and I plugged in to the main frame while Sakura said that she was to roam the facility in search of more clues, "I'll call if I find something suspicious and or important." I nodded as we had our navis Circe and Protoman burst through the gates into the void./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"It was indeed Yai Ayano from Ayano Tech with the monochromatic hair boy. "Oh, you aren't Lan's girlfriend, unless has finally exited the closet." I never knew that these people actually knew me so well, at some point I thought that Lan was going to reveal that he was gay. One would think that with all of the hints Maylu gave him during elementary and middle school, he would be dating her by now but that doesn't seem to be the case. "Hey it's you from the laboratory," I head the kid reply as he had the biggest revelation in the world. "How's life treating you since then?" he asked earning looks of terror from the female and male. "Where's Chaud and what have you done with him?" Lan asked. I'm guessing he isn't like this normally, but I simply replied with a straight forward answer, "As good as it should have been." It probably sounded darker than I intended as he simply replied, "I see... anyways. I was looking for you, Dr. Hikari says that he wants to see you. The results are in and some don't look so good..." I sighed they must have found some of the horrible side effects of the 'treatments' that I was given in the cold soggy place. "It's fine I'll go afterwards." The atmosphere was serious as the simple words were exchanged. Our lingo fell on the deaf ears of Lan and Yai, but deciphered by Chaud immediately. "Anyways," began Lan uncomfortably, "Let's go pick up Maylu. She's most likely doing homework with Sakura and judging by the time, they should be finished." We all nodded and continued to speak about interest such as new games, the next PET, upcoming net battles and so on. "Hey Chaud are you joining the net Grand Prix?" Lan asked excitedly, as they always seem to be the last ones to battle, always making it to the news. "I don't know," he began, "There doesn't seem to be much competition and fighting you over and over can get boring when we always finish in a draw..." Chaud never finished his sentence. "Have you seen him net battle?" Lan said pointing at me. I had told him that I was interested in joining the Grand Prix at a jab to participate in the world wide event. "I bet that he can beat you Protoman in contest of speed and power." Lan was getting worked up but I didn't let him continue, "Just because my net navi is rather fast and can cause quite a bit of damage separately, that doesn't mean that she can beat Protoman in a battle." Chaud raised an eyebrow, but I paid no attention to it. Right now my navi needed its rest in order to recover from the fight as I still haven't perfected the extra code yet./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"We arrived to Maylu's home and surprise surprise, Sakura was in there with her talking about who knows what. I was about to ring the doorbell when Lan stopped me. I turned to him and noticed an evil grin appear on his face. He whispered in my ear, oh this was gonna be good. Since Yai thought that I was a girl from behind, we were going to see if Maylu would also fall for it. Lan rang the doorbell to which Maylu answered cheerfully. "Heya Lan watcha doin?" she asked with a buoyant voice only to stop herself when she asked about me. "Lan, what's that girl doing there?" Oh great she actually fell for it and Lan coyly replied, "She's my girlfriend, Maylu meet..." She brushed past Lan and came up to me, "I don't care who you are, but you will stay away from Lan do you got that?" I didn't turn around instead I spoke, "Wow, I guess I owe you five bucks," I told Lan as I turned around. "Hi there, the name's Jonathan, pleased to meet ya!" She now turned to Lan and began to give chase to the pour boy, "Well it seems as if he won't be needing the five dollars to where he's going." I commented making both beings chuckle behind me. It was then when I heard Sakura come outside asking what was the commotion about. "Hey Sakura, don't worry Lan always gets out of these situations, I just wonder who's going to get it first Lan's face or his ass?"" this now caused the ones snickering beings to begin laughing and Sakura to chuckle. It took about five minutes for Maylu to return with Lan by pinching his ear./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"We all decided to go to a local restaurant and eat which was when Maylu finally brought up the question that even we didn't have an answer to. "So are you two together?" We both froze not really knowing how to answer the question. It was only yesterday that it happened, and it was also yesterday when we hinted to our feeling for each other. It wasn't official or anything... "Yes, yes we are." Sakura spoke out leaving me still frozen and in the dust. I heard Maylu curse under her breath, it has been about two months since I returned back to school and I hang out with Maylu, Sakura, Tory, and Sean at school. "Well I'm happy for both of you..." I could literally see her bulging vein on her forehead causing everyone to cower away from her leaving me and Sakura closest to her. I simply sighed and began to eat my food in silence. Everything began to mute around me, becoming white noise while my thoughts began to run wild. They were memories of me hanging out with a young boy whose face I couldn't make out. He was a boy who everybody referred to him as the the bipolar kid, he would be hyperactive and happy one moment then he would simply stop sit down and stare off into the sky. Although he had a negative nickname, still he seemed to be one of the most popular kids at where ever it was where my memories took me to. The scene continued to play out, I was looking up to the sky where the clouds had gathered, most likely rain clouds. I noticed that he sat next to me, "Are you always out here? I mean looking up to the sky above?" I simply replied yes never breaking my sight from the clouds almost as if I would miss something important. "I see..." We stayed silent for a while before I heard a voice break my floating thoughts./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;""How could you Jonathan?" I heard the female voice ask. It took me a while to identify who it was until I saw Sakura almost in tears. "W-what happened?" I was honestly oblivious to the whole situation. "Don't act like you don't know, you said it pretty confident as well." She left the building running. I noticed that Lan was chuckling under his breath, "I cannot believe that you answered yes to the question Jonathan." I was confused what did I answer yes to? "I cannot believe that you would actually say that you would date Maylu over Sakura after Sakura proposed that you two are together." Now he was laughing, oh this was not good. I didn't think that I said the answer out loud while my thoughts ran. "Are you okay Jonathan?" this time it was Chaud to which I shook my head no. I got up and left the building beginning to feel a few raindrops fall overhead. I needed space to think, and to be away from Lan and his stupidity. I ran into somebody and merely excused myself before returning to my walk towards the nearby park. "Wait Jonathan." It was Chaud again, how did he get here so fast, no a better question how is it that I didn't notice him? I simply ignored it and continued to walk towards the park with Chaud in tow. We both sat down under a tree before he asked, "Tell me what is wrong." First time someone actually asked me this, I mean not even Sakura asks me what's wrong she demands for me to tell her everything. "I don't know," There was silence before I heard Chaud speak up again. "According to your medical record as composed by Dr. Hikari, there were some abnormalities in your thinking patterns. Mainly losing focus and assimilating to your thoughts completely..." That was what happened at the restaurant, "The way that these thoughts interacted with the machine, he said that they were most likely memories of your past, maybe a few that you lost, well during your time of being gone." I took this in and thought about it. "It's weird, because although you say memories, the things that seem familiar never happened... They seemed artificially made instead of my real memories." We continued to talk about the results, most of them were negative but in a bizarre way. "You blood studies show no record of a family ever recorded in time. Then there was also the fact that there are no records for a Johnathan Simmons, actually there never was a Simmons family..." I began to panic, then who am I? If I am not who I've thought who I was then what am I. More of these memories began to invade my mind. There was a sharp pain almost migraine like as thoughts such as people's skin falling off, others getting beheaded, and the most recent one is of a large vast desert. The pain was gone as quickly as it came. "Don't worry I'm fine, I think."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"The rain never let up that day as I walked home through the country side. The mud was thick and the road became narrow, not good. I slipped and fell into the ditch now full of scratches, mud and tiredness. I could barely keep my eyes open as I slowly drifted to a sea of comfort as I was shown a world where tall buildings were scare but open fields ruled the land. It was peaceful, I didn't want leave the place but I began to feel movement underneath me. It stirred me from the peaceful dream that I was having only to find myself a few steps from my house. I heard mumbling coming from the right side of me who was carrying me? "Come on almost there!" I heard the voice much more clearly, it was a girl, it was Sakura, but why her? She was reaching for the doorknob which was when I pulled myself away with all of the strength that I had left in me. "No.." I barely managed with my weak and raspy voice. "I'm sorry about what I said earlier, and even though you wouldn't believe me I wasn't answering the question regarding you and Maylu." I began to walk away before I felt her hand grab on to mine, "Please don't, Chaud told me about what happened, please don't go." She was practically begging for me to stay, either way I could either walk away nor towards the house, I collapsed once again from the extreme exhaustion that I was feeling. All I knew was that I was now inside a warm house sheltered from the rain./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"I don't know what time it was when I woke up I was met with a few eyes overseeing me awake. I noticed that it was Sakura, Tory, and Sean. "Finally you're awake!" I heard Tory exclaim followed by Sean. I chuckled lightly and then turned to Sakura who seemed to breath a sigh of relief. I heard her call others into the room which now included Maylu, Lan, Yai, and Chaud. "Something really interesting happened when you were out..." began Sakura grabbing my attention, "When Chaud and I found you, you began to attack us. Chaud had to hold you down to a certain point, then you Cross-fused." She paused looking rather scared, what is happening to me? "There wasn't a DA and I had to call one in order to bring you down." Chaud paused to look at Lan before continuing. "I have to give props to Lan, he had a point when he said that you could be a possible match for Protoman and I." Anyways he continued to explain that all of a sudden the CF broke leaving me on the ground unconscious. My navi was scanned while I was out and checked for errors or mutations in the code, but everything seemed fine. I reached over with my hand under the blanket to hold my sore arm, only to find it a bit for difficult to actually reach than normal, almost as if my arms grew a size. It was then when I hear my PET ring with the E-Mail notification and I noticed that it was from SciLabs./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"emThis message is to give you the full details of the test you took back when you came. Alien medication was found within you, embedded into your DNA that allows you to heal wounds that most humans would never heal. If any of the effects are found, do not panic as I thoroughly analyzed them and they are harmless to the human body. Also, regarding your thoughts and the process of, no serious trauma was found. However a new hormone we did find. We still have no name for it but it seems to be able to calm the brain under stress, we haven't found any horrible side effects to this yet as it was only a trace amount of it that was recorded with the scans we had of you. Anyways enjoy the rest of your night./em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="LEFT"This proved the worst of my thoughts, they genetically mutated me slowly but surely. At first it was me being able to keep calm, I noticed it at me not jumping at any of the scenes of gore that played in my mind. Now the regeneration of my muscles that would never happen to a regular person without surgery right? They have sealed their fate, and I know that they will not enjoy any minute of it. I got out of bed and put some clothes on, grabbed my PET and walked out the door. I wanted to be angry, but I couldn't, the closest was uncomfort. I noticed that Tory and Sean were behind me wondering where I was going, I never replied I don't think anything had to be said. We were going to take the first train however it would take a while before it arrives, within that time Lan and his friends caught with us. "Where are you going?" I heard him ask once again not answering instead I just sat there waiting for the train to arrive which didn't actually take that long. Within five minutes we were on our way to the heart of Electopia. I had looked up the IP address that Circe had taken and found a vague area as to where they could be located, among them was a building said to be abandoned, but satellite images say otherwise. That was where I was going to first. Upon arriving Lan noticed a Curry shop and had to go to which many groaned. "Let him be, I never asked for any to come along, you go where you want to." A few left to go get Lan while Sean, Tory, Sakura, and Chaud stayed with me. "Okay now it seems that the ones who would get in the way left. Let's go." I continued to walk towards the building and surprise surprise, the door was fully operational and asked for a key code. I plugged Circe in and immediately the key scanner began to release smoke, destroyed. I walked in and the first thing I noticed where surveillance cameras. "I'll have Protoman handle these," Chaud responded as he plugged in his net navi into the system, now leaving the whole security system powered off. "Sean, Tory, I need you to bring down the firewalls that are within the building's servers." They nodded and headed off to complete their jobs. We made our way to the second, then third, fourth, and finally fifth floor of the building to find it completely empty. I was about to turn around when I heard my PET beep. "Hey Johnathan, there seems to be a portal to another section in this area of the net, should we go in?" Interesting, I told them to hold off as we made our way to the area they pointed to. Chaud and I plugged in to the main frame while Sakura said that she was to roam the facility in search of more clues, "I'll call if I find something suspicious and or important." I nodded as we had our navis Circe and Protoman burst through the gates into the void./p