The Dark Rush's POV – AGAIN! What were you expecting, Lanny baby's?

And then we have the good guys, throwing off blow after blow after blow after blow. It wasn't long before the others joined them – now they were ten people, never mind if they were Navis or humans or whatever -- as far as I knew, they were fighting, just fighting, just fighting to save the world.

Occasionally Lan would do something that was totally in character, like letting his – well, Terratasha calls it ego, while Fanficcer, Pikasqueaks and I call it "animeish idiocy" – taking control of him. Which, considering it's Lan we're talking about, wasn't so bad; mostly, this craziness involved cheering, jeering and leering in front of the bad guys. Suffice to say that he paid for his actions – the end result was a mass of orange, white, and brown on the grass. Ick.

Anyway, as I was saying, these ten were who they were – after a short while (five minutes and thirty-two seconds, to be exact), they ran out of energy. Lightstreak and Comet Man had long since stopped fighting – as we've seen, Wily wasn't even in the battle. Bass was the only one standing, and MAN! Was he ever doing a good job of it…

Wily's an evil scientist – unhappily enough, he's also a genius. Therefore, I conclude, he could also stock Chips for his Navi – and Wily had incredible genius-y powers. In short, Bass was armed with every sort of BattleChip arment that ever existed, as well as something that I call "supreme endurance." Yes, that's right: Bass and Wily were cheating.

So are good guys were getting tired… Now they were falling on the thinly bloodied grass… Now they weren't getting up… And now it was time for Official NetBattlers to come to the rescue!

The next thing I knew, I had been whisked off my perch on the slide – I would've done something, but TCF says I'm not supposed to interfere with this part of the story – and was being hauled down by Maysa himself.

"You! Take your calcium!" the crazed fishmonger cried (That's what he is, right?), stabbing one finger in my direction as he carried my small, dark body to Miyu's van, where a stretcher had been erected. I was safely deposited there; I rolled over and watched in amazement – and yes, people, I can get amazed – as the Famous arrived with Official NetBattler reinforcements to do their work.

Within seconds, they had swarmed in among the combatants – and in the space of approximately one and a half seconds Bass had been knocked down. They were all staring down at him with these totally animeish expressions. You know the look: mouth exposed to show white teeth, big oval eyes narrowed and glimmering with light spots, pale faces, quivering jaws, and all the rest . I have to say, TV does give you rather a lot of contact with animes, even if it's been ages since Fanficcer's last seen the particular said type of TV show of this particular series.

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Pikasqueaks: When was the last time you played at least ten minutes of the games?

Thecrazyfanficcer: A long, long time ago. Why?

Pikasqueaks: (gets funny look on face) Um…

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Anyway, to get back to the craziness, Fanficcer's demented…

Within seconds, our heroes had risen with the officials and it was all over. "Bad guys?" Lan glared and stomped each and every one of them hard on the shoulder in turn. "Take that."

Bass winced. "It's over!" he cried dramatically (and uncharacteristically), throwing gloved hands into the air as he and Wily disappeared in puffs of sable-coloured smoke. With that action, Lightstreak hopped onto his feet , dragging Comet Man by the wrist up with him. There the big NetNavi winced at his Operator's touch; the wacky-haired weirdo, however, seemed not to have noticed. In fact…

"We're gonna win!" he cried valiantly, pumping his arms in yet another Lannish gesture while a disgruntled-looking Comet Man rolled his eyes and smacked his forehead with one gloved palm. "We're bad guys! We have to!

"Anyway," Lightstreak went on, back in his old self as he waved jauntily before grabbing Comet Man's arm in a tightly clenched grip, "this is the part where we go vamoose." To illustrate his point, he swiftly stretched one hand downward, toward his belt –

"Oh no you don't," cut in a voice out of the blue.

We all turned, including me from where I was splayed on the stretcher. Surprisingly enough, it was a most unexpected ally – and I mean unexpected. In other words: Guts Man.

And no, I'm not kidding – sure as anything, the yellow, red and gray NetNavi was standing right in front of the pitiable pair, where Lightstreak was trying -- in vain, I might add – to liberate a smoke bomb from the clutches of his gadget-ridden tool belt. "You can't do this, Lightstreak, guts," he went on, stepping forth, flanked by the others. By now, all ten of 'em were back in black and ready for anything, up on their feet and ready to resist to no one. "You can't win, guts."

"And I won't let you without a fight!" Maylu crossed her arms over her chest, Roll looming dangerously in the distance behind her. I know that sounds weird because Roll's mostly a healing Navi (and Rock's -- sorry, Mega's friend/crush), but, then again, she did look distinctly sinister.

"Or me!" Ice Man.

"Or me!" Lan.

"Or me!" Glide, weirdly enough. Very OOC of you, TCF. (glares pointedly)

Anyway, within seconds this single, suddenly sinister group of kids had the fire of saving the world in their eyes and was determinedly joining the Official NetBattlers. I squinched my eyes shut tight, allowing the sounds that followed to blur in my ears as they did their thing.

Slashes followed slices followed cuts followed buzzes followed every other sound of the battle. It was like music to my black ears as I shut my eyes and allowed the sounds to fade into my mind, each one a silent echo on its own but all resonating, beating, clamouring together in a plight – the plight for freedom, the plight for goodness, and – most importantly – the plight for peace.

"Take that!"

"And this!"

"You're going down, bad guys!"

"Arf!"

So were the cries of everyone as they swarmed around the bad guys – knocking them to the ground, glaring hatefully and yet hurtfully, the light spots in their eyes shimmering like bright, crystalline ocean waves as the reigns of the evil ones ended. And they didn't just end like that – no, the reign of terror ended with a rain of terror. Sure as anything, a rain of BattleChip projectiles was bulleting to the ground like a million tiny, stabbing knives – a rain of terror, indeed.

From where I was positioned, I could see Bass' black-gloved fingers scrabbling uselessly at the blood-stained grass in a vain effort to get up – and trust me, was it ever vain. Within the space of two and a half seconds, he had been pinned down by a single, blue thing – Mega Man's foot. "No," Mega said simply, his clear, bright voice carried out by the wind and affecting us all in that sort of way that just tells you that good will rule the world (which it will). Then his face contorted strangely, his green eyes full of confused-ness as he turned to me. "Say what? Is it just me, or did you disappear with Wily a few minutes ago?"

"Ahem." I coughed politely into one paw as I strode over the grounds on all fours, walking calmly across the battlefield until I was joined by a single figure – the real Rush. Like I keep trying to stress on Pikasqueaks, Fanficcer, and everyone else (rolls eyes), I'm not a dark Rush, I'm a fatedog. Right, to get back to it –

"Is it just me, or that every time something strange and somehow related with plot holes, OOC-ness or some other mistake of TCF's comes up, everyone turns to me?" I asked, cocking my head cheekily to the side – much as Lan had done so long ago in the subway (and, yes, I do know what's happened in the fanfic) – and put one hand on Rush's head.

The little dog barked happily with something of a doggy grin, his eyes quickly snapping shut as he reared further onto his hind legs and flashed the peace sign. "Arf!"

"Oh, brother." I placed one hand on my mouth and slit my eyes – wow, now I must've looked a lot like Plato or Aristotle when they'd been thinking – as I waited for Rush to finish his little bout of excited craziness. "Anyway, why does that always happen?"

Across from me, the one and only Lan Hikari grinned guiltily and dug the toe of one cracked orange roller skate into the ground. "Um – Dark Rush – Truth, Lies, and Pure Craziness hasn't happened yet, you know."

"I'm a fatedog, remember?" I gave a slightly mischievous grin as I righted my head. "No, seriously. It should've happened. I mean, it's set in Battle Network 1, no?"

Instantly, everyone began talking all at once and the next thing they knew – and yes, not me, because Fanficcer tells me what's supposed to happen beforehand (and I'm a FATEDOG! HAH!) – was that they had forgotten about what they had been talking about a few seconds ago.

"Um… Is it just me, or have I forgotten about what we were talking about a few seconds ago?" Roll shook her head, trying to clear herself to no avail. "Why am I saying these things? I don't even know what OOC means."

OK, now I was annoyed. I quickly swerved, rounding on TCF. "FANFICCER!"

With a small popping noise, TCF appeared – Pikasqueaks on its shoulder, as always – across from me, its legs folded Amerindian-style as it perched on the grass; suffice to say, it was now visible to everyone.

"Great. You're so annoying." Fanficcer smacked its forehead. "OK. On with what could be the last official chapter of this fic." (It isn't though, if you're wondering.)

"Official?" Lan questioned, raising his eyebrows. Yes, indeed, Hikari – now you're really out of character.

"OK. This is it." With an exasperated, TCF turned to the said puzzled-looking crazed crimefighter. "Lan! As of now, you're partying!"