"Kiddo! What's happening?"

Kaita sprang to his feet. "Black!"

His face seemed even more pale and gaunt in the dark, and his grin even creepier. "The one and only."

Remembering the last time they'd met, Kaita exclaimed, "Wait a minute, I thought you had your key! What are you doing wandering around out here?"

"Cutting down on the competition, naturally! You think I want a bunch of pansies in the finals? They're starting to get harder to find, though. I'm bored, and you're usually good for some entertainment." Kaita scowled. Black nodded to himself. "Where's the girlfriend?"

"First off, she's not my girlfriend-" Black smirked. "Well, she's not!"

"Sure, sure. Back to my question. Where is she?"

"In there. She's getting her key. It's been a while, though. I'm kind of worried."

Punk said, "It's supposed to be long. 'At least one day within before the contestant reaches the key', that's what he said."

"Yep," seconded Black. "She's either gotten it by now, meaning the maze has gone dormant and she's completely safe sleeping in the middle..." He smirked. "Or, more likely, she hasn't, and she's in trouble. If that's the case, it's not going to spit her back out until morning."

"Oh." Kaita looked back up at him. "And you guys want to stay here the entire time?"

"Well, we hadn't thought about that before..." Black began.

"Now that you mention it, sure we will!" finished Punk. "Where's Carboy? I wouldn't want him to be surprised when he comes back..." He looked around, mean-spirited mischief gleaming in his eyes, before wandering a little further off. Turboman would doubtlessly be getting the shock of his life in a matter of minutes, and his Operator wasn't faring any better with Black's gaunt face leering at him.

In his misery, Kaita asked the question almost without realizing he was saying it. "Why are you such jerks, anyway?"

He hadn't expected any answers, but Black surprised him with one. "Huh. Never thought about it... Guess it's just part of me or something. Y'know... fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, I gotta be a jerk." He shrugged before abruptly flopping to the ground, leaning against one of the trees and looking up at Kaita through his half-closed eye. "Don't bother thinking about it. I'm like a force of nature, kiddo; there's no saving a guy like me. That goes double for Punk."

"Really?"

"Really, really."

Kaita glared at him. "Nobody could be that bad."

A smile and a near-silent puff of breath served as a laugh for Black before he said, "Most people aren't. That's just what we want you to think."

"But, but..." He stopped; his protest had been automatic and not thought out at all. Black sat a little straighter, obviously waiting for Kaita to follow it up. "Oh... I don't know!" The boy thought aloud, "You couldn't be just pretending. You... You enjoy this. You came here just to laugh in my face! I bet you don't regret what you did to Turboman, or whatever Nova's planning, or your virus."

"Then we really are that bad," Black said tonelessly.

"But what if you have some reason to do it? Like, someone'll die if you don't do it, or... I don't know..."

Black smirked. "Ransom notes? Please. You've been watching too much TV." Kaita tried to suggest something else, but the older Netbattler said distantly, "Sometimes it's complicated, sometimes it's simple. Paying the rent, getting revenge, making a statement, just for grins... Sometimes it's the last resort, other times, well, that can be a can of worms all to itself..." He shrugged.

Kaita was silent for a little while, thinking it over. "Wow," he finally said. "That is complicated." His curiosity piqued, he asked, "What about you?"

"You ask too many questions. That's a useful skill."

"Huh?"

Black got to his feet. "Nobody ever got anywhere without the proper knowledge. So many fights would never have happened without the proper misinformation. Just try not to stray too far from the beaten path, kiddo, or your tiny mind- might- snap-" All this time, he'd been inching across the gap between them; to punctuate the end of his sentence, he flicked his finger against Kaita's forehead. "But I guess it's too late for you. We're having this conversation, after all. You're very good. Or I'm very bad."

"Maybe it's a mix?" Kaita asked nervously.

"Probably." Black half-fell to the ground again, this time with his hand pulling Kaita's arm down with him. The boy had little choice but to go along. Almost childishly, Black asked, "Say, how serious are you about Netbattling? You seemed lost back there."

"Back where? With those two weather Navis?"

"No, the World Three Area."

"Oh. Well, I... I'm not as good as I thought I was." Kaita looked down at the dirt and leaves on the ground. "That really bothers me... I guess I'm not really serious about it after all. I never really practiced or anything, we just won somehow..." He didn't like thinking about that loss and what it meant, and found himself focusing on the ground instead. There were no ants crawling around; he found that odd. There didn't seem to be that much life in this forest.

"Interesting. Well, what are you into, then?"

"My dad owns an auto repair shop, and, well, Turboman's almost like a car, so I've always been around cars. I want to design them when I get older. See, in a car, all this little stuff adds up in the end, like the engine design, how stuff is wired, the quality of-" Kaita snapped out of his ramble and narrowed his eyes at Black. "Hey, why're you asking me this stuff?"

"Turnabout is fair play." Reluctantly, Kaita nodded in agreement. Black asked, "So you and your Navi have been together for a while?"

"Since I was six. Why?"

"That makes sense. Familiarity with your Navi is a pretty big part of Netbattling. But it's not the only one."

"Yeah," Kaita said, drawing circles in the dirt. "I sure found that out."

"Well, you're all wrapped up in things now. You'd better step it up."

"I'll try."

"No, no..." Exasperated, Black said, "Netbattling isn't about trying. It's about doing. You sink or you swim." Kaita looked up in surprise-it was like the older Netbattler could see right through to the uncertainty he'd been trying to hide since that first defeat. With more feeling than Kaita had ever thought he'd hear from the hacker, Black told him, "For example, you will decide whether or not you get any better. And we will fight again. And when we do, will I see improvement?"

There was only one thing Kaita could say, the way Black put it. "Yes."

Black slapped Kaita on the back, startling the boy. "That's the answer I like to hear!" A scream reverberated from the forest to their right. Black looked over at Kaita and smiled. "I won't tell 'em if you don't." Kaita nodded dumbly. The humanness suddenly vanished from Black's face, brown eye frosting over once again and smile turning into a cold smirk. He leaned against the tree, pulling down his sleeves with small, quick movements. By the time Turboman was dragged back into camp, branches, other bits of forest, and Punk's mace-cum-towing-line tangled in his spoiler, it was like their conversation had never happened for Black. Kaita was doing his best to keep his head from returning to that moment, too, but he kept darting looks at the man as Punk strode into the clearing.

"Just as wimpy as ever!" Punk whipped his cable off Turboman's spoiler, leaving the other Navi to land with a loud whump. "You should put some bumper stickers on 'im, see if they'll stay when I send him back to his PET like this-" He slammed his mace into a tree right behind Turboman. It cracked in two horizontally where the spiked cylinder hit, with cracks splintering up lengthwise and sending shards of wood spinning into the darkness. Turboman barely managed to get out of the way before the tree crashed down.

"Now, now," Black chided, seemingly as unimpressed by the show of strength as Kaita was shocked. "He's got a key, you know. It would be a terrible waste to not shame him in front of a crowd, tempting as it is to just do it now." His brown eye darted over to the younger Operator. "Unless, of course, they're feeling confident..."

Kaita looked to Turboman and found the Navi looking right back. Neither one was feeling lucky. Punk said, "Of course not. Any enemy of mine learns very well and very quickly what I can do." He said it with no pride or sneer in his voice; it was just a fact to him. Kaita wondered how many Navis Punk had deleted-how long he'd been around and fighting-to have that kind of confidence.

Black nodded. "A Navi who couldn't show his enemies that would be a waste of my time." He looked over at Turboman and smirked.

"You just wait," the car-like Navi growled. "Kaita-kun and I'll run you down so fast, you won't even make it-"

"Past the starting line? Out of a Navi like you? How original!" Black laughed mockingly. He stretched his arms above his head as he lazily continued, "I think that when it comes to Netbattles, with my experience and Punk's, we have... pole position."

"You-" Kaita yawned. "You won't even notice when we win. You'll be too busy gloating."

"Please. Letting anything get in the way of my work is one thing I never do." He leaned his head back against the tree. "Good night, Kaita."

Kaita blinked. "You actually remember my name?"

"Duh," Black mumbled before shifting a little. Kaita almost wanted to say something more-to him, the silence was awkward-but tiredness had taken any arguments away. In the quietness and the dark, it didn't take long for him to drift to sleep.

0110110101100101011001010111 0100011010010110111001100111

The next morning, Kaita woke up to discover that Punk was still there. Black didn't seem to be in the clearing anymore, but Kaita doubted he'd gone far. Turboman was on full alert nearby, but that wasn't where it stopped; he was tensed up, as if ready to spring. Kaita looked confusedly at him for a moment, but the red Navi didn't seem to notice.

The next thing Kaita noticed was that he hadn't gotten around to eating dinner last night, and he was starving. The backpack was gone from its spot against the tree. Punk was dangling it from his extendable arm, swinging it in lazy swoops. His eyes were on Turboman, though; every time the other Navi looked like he was about to snatch the backpack, Punk would change his pattern or simply jerk his prize away. "G'morning, kiddo," he greeted, tossing the bag over to Kaita with a deceptively small push. The force behind the throw bowled its target over.

"Thank you," Turboman snapped.

"You're very welcome." Punk watched Kaita dig through the backpack. Turboman simply watched to see what Punk would do next. "Must be inconvenient, eatin'," he said. "All anyone has to do is take the food away an' you're at their mercy. I wonder how many Netbattlers've caught on to that?"

"We could steal their food back or something," Kaita argued.

"Yeah, but they could be holdin' their stuff somewhere else. 'Know thine enemy' and all-you could wind up with a bag fulla rocks."

"But there's no other place to put it. My other backpack has clothes and stuff in it, and I bet the same goes for everyone else. We didn't know about having to be out here, remember?"

"And when you find a pile of clothes lyin' around on day three, I'm sure you'll remember that. Or maybe you'll just try to eat 'em." Kaita made a face and turned back to finding breakfast.

"Well, I like eating more than just... just getting energy out of a can or something," he defended. What little was left of the bread was starting to go stale, and he didn't want to know what the heat had done to some of the boxes of food. "I bet you'd like it too if you could eat."

"Nothing wrong with cans," Punk said. "Cans are much more compact than that." Almost everything in the backpack had wound up on the ground. Not for the first time, Kaita wondered why there was canned soup but no convenient way to heat it. A Turbo Wheel would do the trick, but then he needed firewood and an area where there weren't overhanging tree branches to be set on fire...

"I don't think trying to start a fire's a good idea around here, Kaita-kun," Turboman said. That left some dried fruit, which Kaita hated, and semi-stale bread, which was equally unappealing. Crackers and cookies did not a satisfying breakfast make. He and Mary were trying to be careful about the water, anyway. He doubted she'd appreciate it if he used it all to swallow the dry crackers down.

"Cans are sounding better all the time," Punk said.

For Kaita, that decided it; he grabbed a plastic fork and the can opener from the bottom of the backpack and got to work opening a can of pineapples. "This is weird," he complained. "It doesn't open..."

"Maybe it's on the wrong way," Turboman suggested. Punk just watched, clearly not about to give any help. "Let me try." The Navi got it open, and his Operator found that the pineapples looked fine.

"Thanks!" It took a little over half the can before Kaita felt like slowing down. When he looked up, Black had returned. The hacker was sitting with his back against the tree next to his Navi's. To Kaita's surprise, Beat was sitting on his forearm. "Hey," he said, swallowing his bite of food. "What're you doing with him?"

"Huh? He's mine. I created him." Kaita looked from cute bird to forbidding hacker in confusion. Black rolled his eye and explained, "He's a present for a friend. I'm sure if I was keeping him for myself, he would have more spikes, like you seem to expect."

Kaita shrugged and continued plowing through the pineapple chunks. He chewed for a moment, then looked back up, confused. Just as he'd thought, Black didn't have a supply bag like the other contestants, and he wasn't asking for anything out of Kaita's. He felt a bit of a chill, even in the warm weather, and swallowed-the hacker hadn't eaten the last time they'd met, had he? Did he eat at all?

There was only one way to find out. "Aren't you hungry?" Black looked up in surprise. "Here-there's more forks so you won't have nasty good guy cooties or whatever." Kaita ran over, picked up a new fork, and came back.

Black looked at the pineapples, confused. "I..."

"You didn't have anything last night, did you? Then you're just as hungry as I was!"

"You're right. Thank you." Kaita couldn't help but notice how slowly Black ate, always one chunk at a time where he would've shoveled in two or three himself. And the older Netbattler chewed slowly, too, making every little bit last as long as it could. "If I were you, I never would've given anything to me," he said, amused, as he set the can and fork next to him. It was a completely empty can. Kaita was amazed to see that even the stuff the pineapple bits floated in was gone. "You're a pretty naive kid."

Though he was a little annoyed at first, Kaita said proudly, "That's what makes you a bad guy, just taking everything for yourself."

Black raised his eyebrow, then nodded to himself. "Very naive. You'd be amazed at how many people got rid of their partners because they thought they needed all the supplies to themselves, or they figured it was the first round. You and your girlfriend are the only two I've seen sharing a supply pack."

"She's not my-" A creaking sound sent Kaita leaping to his feet, grinning. "Mary-chan!" He and Turboman ran over to greet their friends.

"Kaita-kun, look!" Mary produced her key with a flourish.

"Awesome!" Kaita looked back. Black and Punk were already gone; considering how close they'd been to the brush, he wasn't surprised to see it.

"What's back there?" Mary asked, peering around Kaita.

"Nothing." Kaita turned back to his friend and said, "Come on, let's head to the final round!"