The expo was under way. Ethan, Alisha and their navis were all watching as the old gentleman Ethan met earlier went on to explain his goal. Likewise the Conductor's navi, Chargeman was also aiding in the expo, assisting with the cyberworld side of things. While almost everyone were interested in the expo, one navi in particular was having a hard time keeping still, Gregar.
The cyber wolf was opposed to any idea that would lead him back to cyber city, least the officials seal him away again or he runs into Megaman without regaining more of his power. Gregar was not afraid of fighting, but that didn't mean he would recklessly go head first against powerful opponents like Megamam. Megaman had stolen a great deal of Gregar's power, and after that fight with Bass, Gregar was now down to a little over a quarter of power. It was only thanks to Flare and Alias, combining with him, was he able to beat Bass and even then Gregar knew Bass was holding back. 'I need to get stronger,' Gregar thought,' and I am not going to be able to do that just standing here.'
The cybeast sneaked his way to a warp point to leave the mall square. He was about to step through when a small hand rested on his shoulder. He turned around, and reflexively unsheathed his buster and faced it against the person who touched him.
"Wow, take it easy there." Flare warned, watching down the barrel of one of the fastest, if not the fastest buster in all the net. Upon seeing Flare, Gregar sheathed back his buster. He looked at little his sister, who stood with her arms crossed, watching him.
"Well," she spoke, "you going to tell me where you're going, or should I tell Alias and Ethan." Gregar kept his face stoic as ever.
"I am only going to bust some viruses in the mall area, no need for you to worry about me. And in case you forgot, I have bonded to the PET, Ethan made, if anything does happen and I can't handle it, I can jack out." Gregar responded to younger navi. She raised an eyebrow and continued to stare him down. She finally let up and turned to return to the expo.
"Alright, just promise me, you won't get in any trouble." Flare told her brother.
"Tell trouble that." Gregar retorted.
"Just be safe." Flare snapped. "and use a disguise or something, you do realise you stand out like a in a swarm of Mettaurs."
"Okay, okay." Gregar muttered. His body glowed as he changed form. His claws retract and changed colour into black armour gloves. All his spiky beast armour smoothed out, becoming more streamlined and darkening in colour. Same happened with his feet. Gregar's tail retracted into his body, if one looked it would seem like he never had one. The helmet was the last to change, morphing from a wolf head into, black helmet similar to Alias. Flare took a good look at the disguise, which looked a lot like a military styled navi, maybe like an admiral, sergeant, maybe colonel style armour? Whatever it was, she wasn't too bothered, as long as he was unrecognizable. Even his eyes changed, going from the pure red pupil less eyes she was used to, to white eyes with red pupils. Navi crest had a capital G with water mark resembling Gregar's beast head right behind it.
"How do I look?" Gregar asked.
"Too ugly for any to bother you." Flare chirped.
"What!?"
"Just kidding."
"I get you for it, bird-brain." Gregar countered.
"Yeah, yeah you overgrown mutt." Flare continued trying to get the last laugh. "See you later, "she told Gregar. The wolf was about the respond, when she shot him with and airshot. Gregar was pushed straight through the warp point and teleported to another part of the Mall's server. Flare then proceeded to back to the expo.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the mall's net.
A warp point glowed as a Gregar flew out of it. The disguised beast landed head first in whatever part of the net he was in. A random swordy saw this, and while its first instinct was to attack, it couldn't help but laugh at the navi. Its laughter however was promptly cut short when it was turned to swiss cheese by the Gregar buster. The virus burst into pixels as Gregar dislodged his head from the ground.
"I hope no navi saw that." the beast muttered. Gregar stood up and scanned his environment. He was in one of the store compspaces in the mall, which ever it was didn't matter, it looked pretty standard to him. He walked for not more than ten seconds before several more viruses came. Several pink sheep like viruses were running towards him, trying to headbutt him. Gregar easily a voided them but they kept running around him. He tried swiping them with his claws, but forgot that he was in disguise and had no claws. Luckily the virus did only a small amount of damage.
Even though he was in disguise, Gregar still growled in anger. He heard, when the sheep struck, someone laughing at him. He turned to see who was laughing only to be struck again from behind. The laughter persisted and Gregar found himself looking around once more, only to be headbutted in the side by another sheep. "Whoever is laughing, better shut up before I rip your voice code out." Gregar screamed as he punched one of the viruses with as firehit, only to burn of its wool. Grehar looked at the virus with no wool, noting how it took no damage and that the wool slowly grew back.
"Why, it is rather laughable that a mighty wolf be beaten by small fluffy sheep." A voice called. Gregar growled once more fed up with the viruses and the voice. He unsheathed the buster and focus some of his power, changing whatever the disguise's weak buster was to something more to his liking. He offloaded on some of the viruses, ripping away at their wool then health. He made sure that all the viruses had lost their wool before he brought up his left arm. "Program Advance, Wideburner" the cybeast yelled, as he roasted all the sheep viruses.
The viruses took black burnt look before exploding into blue pixels. Gregar could have sworn he heard one Bah, before deleting. Gregar looked around for the source of the voice he heard before, but he couldn't find any. Gregar growled and proceed further through the mall's server, maybe all the stress was finally causing him to glitch.
Ethan and co. were still at the expo site. The expo itself had long since concluded, but Alisha and Flare seemed interested in the idea of the steam train running through the country. Alisha was busy chatting with the conductor, while Flare talked to Chargeman. Alias and Midnight were busy sorting through their folders looking for useful chip combinations. This left Ethan with nothing to do but feel uneasy for the cybeast. He was looking through the PET screen for Gregar, just to make sure the beast kept out of trouble. The conductor noticed this and also the PET in his. After finishing his chat with Alisha, the conductor made his way over to Ethan. "I take it the expo might not have been what you were expecting?" The conductor asked Ethan.
Ethan looked up from the screen to the old gentleman. "Hardly, the idea of a steam engine is something I have only heard from old Christmas stories." Ethan countered.
"Well, if you're interested, I can teach you how to harness the power of the steam engine for netbattling." The conductor told him.
"Wish I could, but I don't have a cross system." Ethan sighed.
The conductor looked up for second, contemplating something. "I normally don't do this, but, how about I teach the two of you a new Program Advance instead. So new, some libraries won't even register it." The conductor informed them.
This took both Ethan and Alisha back. A new advance. Alisha seemed excited, but Ethan wasn't buying it. "With all due respect sir, how did you come across such a new P.A . " Ethan asked, his voice not betraying the doubt he had." I would have thought something like a new P.A would be classified to Officials."
"They can't classify from me, what I develop." The old conductor chuckled. Now, Ethan was nearly speechless, nearly. "Don't look so surprised, did you really think I was all about old school trains." The conductor laughed.
"Um, yeah" Ethan responded sheepishly.
The conductor stopped laughing, "Hey."
Alisha decided to intervene to save Ethan from himself. "So when do we start?" she asked the gentleman.
"How about right now?", The man responded.
Ethan and Alisha glance back at each other.
"Sure," Alisha responded.
"I suppose, if it wouldn't be too long." Ethan murmured, still looking at the PET.
"Excellent. Right this way." The conductor gestured and the duo followed. They stopped by a vending machine in the mall. "Alright, Chargeman's already inside. Who wants to go first?"
"Ladies first." Ethan motioned to Alisha gesturing to the machine.
"Ooh, you're too kind." Alisha responded, "still going to kick your butt later in netbattle though."
"You wish." Ethan retorted.
Gregar continued his trip through the server. He had been casually tearing viruses apart, sometimes by slicing them, sometimes by shooting them until the virus more holes than virus. All in all he was now loaded with zenny and quite a handful of bugfrags. He was hoping to find some rare chips, but this was a public server so the viruses were annoying but weak. It also didn't help that he was wanted by the Officials. Even with the disguise, Gregar was wary on making his disguised form popular least someone sees him change into his beast form.
While walking he felt a strange jolt, run through his body. He looked over in the direction of the frozen zone, the ice cream shop compspace. "That's interesting." The beast muttered as he ran off to the compspace. He jumped through the link and logged into the frozen zone.
"Wow." The beast gasped. The entire compspace was a frozen wonderland gone wrong. There were various spikes sticking out from various parts of the floor. The floor itself was nothing bit ice, as if someone release an entire folder dedicated to ice seeds. Gregar slowly traversed the area. "I know this is aj ice cream shop, but they didn't need an ice age."
He felt the ground vibrate beneath him. An ice spike shattered as a black disc flew through it. Gregar's eyes followed the black disc, a puck as it bounced around the field before coming for Gregar. Gregar saw this in advance and side stepped the puck avoiding the break chip. He turned to see several air hockey viruses swarming around the area. Gregar stared down the viruses challenging them. The viruses accepted and unleashed a swarm of pucks at the cybeast. Gregar dodged them when they came in front him, but forgot that they ricocheted of the wall. Two pucks flew past his sides, he tried to time it right to stop the last puck, by stop it with his foot, one of his dumbest ideas ever. His foot landed on the puck and the kept going. Gregar was flipped 180 degrees and landed flat on his head. "This is not my day." The cybeast groaned. The viruses didn't wait for Gregar for the regain his footing, instead opting to hit him with a barrage of attacks. Gregar was thrown into the air by the attacks. If did land on the ground he would fall down flat, when he slipped on the ice. "This...ow ..is.. ow...getting...ow...really.. ow ..annoying." Gregar growled. One of the pucks launched him high into the air, right into one of the spikes. Gregar gripped the spike and held on trying to avoid sliding down to the ground. The viruses launched more pucks in an attempt to knock down the wolf on the ice spike. Gregar felt the spike cracking and jumped to another. He looked down at the viruses. "How humilating." he grumbled. That grumbled then turned into a growl as his rage began to build. Gregar was frustrated beyond words. He was not going to let any low class virus humiliate him anymore.
He roared as transformed into his beast form. He unsheathed his buster and fired full volley of energy pellets at one of the viruses. In his rage Gregar failed, to notice the buster's recoil was slowly pushing him against the spike, slowly cracking it. He did notice when the spike started tipping over, though. The spike tipped over carrying Gregar with it. The beast noticed this and leapt of avoiding crashing with the spike, one of the viruses wasn't so lucky. Gregar landed less than graceful on the ice terrain. It was now just him and the last air hockey. Both eyed the other, waiting for one to make the first move. The air hockey, confident as ever made the first move. As the puck was about to leave the virus, it was struck by a series of vulcan fire. Gregar then smirked. An energy bomb materialized in his hand. Gregar brought his arm back and tossed the bomb for the virus. The virus, unable to move, could only watch as the bomb collided and deleted it.
"Phew, that was more difficult than I thought." Gregar told himself. He was about to leave the area, feeling sick of the ice world. As he approached the warp point a blast struck causing a series of ice spikes grow right between him and the link. "What now?" Gregar complained as he turned around to see who shot the ice blast. His eyes widened as he was struck by a strong icy breath. His body slowly became in cased in ice, starting with his legs and tail before moving quickly up his body and arms. He realised he had no other choice, before the ice reached his head, Gregar closed his eyes and concentrated on his PET. As his body froze over he used the last bit of strength to send an S.O.S. signal. His body now frozen solid left the great cybeast looking like an ice sculpture. Gregar could only watch as the large figure which froze him approach.
Author's Notes:
I'm alive. Sorry the chapter took so long, it's just that with school and everything, time just seems like something I can't afford, but fret not loyal netops. My friend consort update more regularly and the two us do work together on various chapters. I have long way to go to catch up with but what can you do. Give up school to become a full time writer, wait a minute, maybe.
I'll try to update more often.
Like always review, fav and follow and I'll see you around.
Jack out.