Chapter 38: Programming
08:18 AM (Japan Time), Monday July the 23rd…
"… WHAT?"
"WHAT?"
"Whoa! Calm down."
"Those guys stole ALL 491 3D POKÉMON SPRITES?"
"Calm down! You two!"
Kuroshiro came into the basement (while being fully dressed) where the twins had been playing with a Wii console at Mario Party 8 as they sat on chairs near the bed to tell them the news.
"Yeah. It'd seem the jerk wants to set up a ruckus with them but it'll take a while to program all of them to begin with."
"Didn't the others counter?" Netto asked.
"Sure they did! Between some ripped off armies from some Bulgarian PC RPG game were used to keep them busy and when the real fighting force converged they kicked them: their HP fell under the 25% mark but they did have the time to download and compress the sprite and sound data associated with them… But no moves…"
"So they gotta pick 4 moves for ALL 491 Pokémon…" Saito muttered.
"I know. So they'll take a while. And Legato told me it'd seem the guys are starting to suspect I'm the "culprit"… Mr. Black was too obvious of name to begin with if they already knew my surname." He sighed.
"No wonder."
"It was bound to happen."
"And I think they'll be dropping by here soon too. Well. At least we got to try out the other games yesterday so… I've had my fill. If they want to retrieve you guys then I won't get in the way. I'm going to move elsewhere: I need some days to settle and think of what I wanna do."
"Alright. We won't stop you, then."
"Thanks. I'll contact you once I feel like I can commit myself. Just tell them I'm not a bad guy, will you?"
"Sure." Saito shrugged.
"Thanks. Well. Legato will soon bring the breakfast too."
"Yum! Breakfast…"
"Jeez. Netto – kun. Don't put that face."
"Heh, heh, heh." Kuroshiro giggled.
He walked out of the room, climbed the stairs into the surface, and then exited into the main corridor: Pharaoh Man was there and seemingly waiting for him.
"Did something happen?"
"Kuroshiro – sama… I detected plenty of non-encoded radio and mobile traffic not even 200 meters from here but which then began to fade away around midnight or one o'clock… I believe we've been scouted."
"That was fast. The hacking happened around that time: they must be trying to patch the damage before getting here."
"What should we do?"
"Nothing. Tactical withdrawal… Our enemy ain't them: "Neo Gospel" is the enemy. They must be given a lesson. To avoid direct battling, though, we'll battle their proxies instead. They'll do good experience."
"Roger!"
"Proxies…? Where…?" Burner Man popped his head outta one of the rooms and looked excited.
"Not yet. But soon… Tons and tons of berserk Pokémon…"
"Heh! Then I'll go after the Grass and Bug type: I wanna roast 'em…"
"I'd rather record their vain struggle~! Mwah, hah, hah!"
"You shut up." Legato growled close by.
"YIKES!"
"I'm going to my room. Later. Legato! Bring the breakfasts once you've finished readying those."
"Roger, sir."
Kuroshiro returned to his room and sat next to the computer: he began to type there and then a wireless phone next to the table rang: he picked it up and tried to look unimpressed.
"So! You dared to answer, brat." Yoru Yami's voice taunted.
"Ah. So you knew. I thought as much."
"Hmpf! Wanna play detective?"
"I'd rather leave it up to Dick Grayson." He sneered.
"Hah! You wanna counter."
"Who knows, Mr. Absolute Evil?"
"Hmpf! Absolute Evil? Why not." The guy played around.
"So? You'll come and toss me into the living Naraku?"
"Nah! That kyoudai badass must be expecting that. I don't do predictable things."
"So you'll rather use "some" of the stolen monsters but not all of them: maybe you'll end using non-evolution species or full-evolution species instead…" Kuroshiro wasn't impressed.
"Hmpf! Guess so."
"Maybe you want Ra's al Ghul's ninja herds to slaughter them?"
"Hmpf. I don't need anyone!" The guy boasted.
"Then why did you hire Yuriko and the others?" Kuroshiro taunted next.
"Sheesh. Spoke too fast…!"
"Gotcha."
"Hmpf."
"And if you expect me to feel hatred for that gal then I don't anymore because for me it's like she's the little twin sister and I can't blame the little twin sis for what the big twin sis did."
"Clever bothersome meddling guy…!"
"I feel praised."
"SHEESH!"
"El Che Guevara?"
"What in the…! Ah! I see. You wanna play Vincent."
"Play Vincent? Oh please. That's guy a bringer of brain-fever." Kuroshiro groaned in protest.
"You just gave me an idea: I'll broadcast that guy's home-made show across the city and have everyone suffer brain-fever! It's lame but effective: I don't need to come up with the Mad Hatter!" The villain chuckled.
"Oh. I'm so scared."
"Play smart while you can… You lowlife will soon regret it…"
"No: you'll regret creating me to begin with."
"SHEESH!"
The call got cut and Kuroshiro calmly came out into the front yard where Burner Man was flipping around.
"Burner Man. Here: burn it up. It's all yours."
"OK, Danna! Burning Sword!"
Burner Man began to burn the phone while Kuroshiro headed back in.
That was farewell, Yoru Yami! I'm - FREE! At last! Free from your grip!
08:39 AM (Japan Time)…
"… So, Charles… Have you figured out something?"
"Commander Alamantz did."
"What did he figure out?"
"Kuroshiro's address…"
"Oh! Really?"
"Yeah. He called me 5 minutes ago."
"Good!"
Vadous brightened up once Charles brought him the news: Davis could be seen standing behind Charles' right shoulder too: Vadous was sitting on the observation deck chair, as usual.
"Boss!"
"Blood? Let me guess. Sigma again…?"
"Yes, sir! He won't learn! I don't like him coming so close to me: I then have nightmares about that demonic glow to his eyes and face! As much as he tries to play yaoi despite that we're androids he always forgets his close-up face can make anyone cower in fear!"
"By all the… I'm fed up with this!"
"Who wouldn't, Boss?"
Blood Shadow ran in while looking annoyed (given how he'd removed the helmet and the shotgun) and Vadous grumbled.
"Handle the line."
"Roger."
Vadous came out while Blood Shadow sat on the chair and sighed: he then looked up at Charles and Davis.
"So! Do we know anything?"
"Nintendo just found something curious: a lot of the sprites had been returned to them but the reason is clear: they're only keeping fully evolved species and discarding weak ones. They keep "Legendaries" and "non-evolution" Pokémon too…" Davis admitted.
"They must find it easier if they do it this way but the list keeps on being pretty large: in Gen I alone they gotta program about 81 PKMN if you include the "Ibuui" evolutions by "Stone"… I don't know if they'll include "Metamon", though… Nevertheless, having to deal with 81 out of 151 makes a difference even if you only skip about 70 PKMN… If some new evolutions were introduced in future gens they'll include them as separate PKMN altogether… Maybe they've split into 4 teams to handle each Generation but they will use Gen IV data to program moves and such to begin with." Charles continued with a sigh.
"Hum. How many would they keep in Gen II?"
"Let's see… About 63 PKMN out of 100 new which were introduced back then… Over 60%... There were some new pre-evolutions which won't do them any good, anyway. I'm not sure if "Unknown" will be included 'cause they'd need 26 sprites for each of its forms." Davis counted.
"And if we count Gen III…?"
"Lemme handle that… Roughly 75 out of the 135 there… They inevitably end up with over 50% of the list… Dave! Gen IV…?"
"Jeez. Davis is fine! Anyway! Gen IV… They introduced 105… 66 out of 105 will be useful to them…"
"So! Summing up… 81 plus 63 plus 75 plus 66… 285 out of 491... They've got quite a lot of job ahead of them and I doubt them being ready before tomorrow at the earliest…" Blood Shadow counted.
"Sure. So today we can focus on rescuing those two."
"Ah! We figured out Kuroshiro's address?"
"Yeah. Commander Alamantz did: I guess you're going to be mobilized for a sortie but if Kuroshiro wants to prove that he isn't the bad guy! So…"
"… He won't resist…" Blood Shadow guessed.
"Exactly. Even though it's 4 on 3…"
"OK."
"… Huff! The guy sure was stubborn today." Vadous growled as he stepped back into the room.
"Lovely. I hope he doesn't pull some joke during the rescue mission: but I guess Commander Omega will keep tabs on him."
"Surely…"
"Boss! Dragon's come up with raw spices now." Someone protested over the radio.
"Raw spices! The moron! Not everyone likes raw spices! Tell him the God of Anger is about to descend!" Vadous groaned.
"OK… Let's hope it works!"
"Blood: remain on standby. We'll soon go out but I want to have a check on any hints regarding what "Neo Gospel" is ultimately aiming for or their hideout's location…" Vadous told him.
"Roger, Boss."
"By the way! Dave! Tell Hal to open up the Temptation Bay!"
"What the… What's the Temptation Bay? You mean the food storage room? But the Discovery uses pre-cooked synthetic meals which are heated up and designed to be high in energy and such…"
"Kidding ya~…"
"Oh come on. Let's focus on how to take out a lot of those guys: we'd need to install "Moves" into the computer so that I can select them and momentarily upload them before excluding them…"
"Roger, Move Teacher!"
"JEEZ! Sorry, Vadous. We'll settle this off-camera. I'm getting fed up!"
09:12 AM (Japan Time)…
"… Shah, shah, shah! Out of 75 Gen III PKMN I've been able to program and ready 33… I'm close to the 50% mark!"
"Good, Needle Man. Cosmo Man and Swallow Man are making progress with Gen II, Freeze Man and Yamato Man handle Gen I and Cloud Man is taking care of Gen IV… You've worked for about 8 hours so 33 in 8 hours means a rate of about 4 per hour… Not bad… Double this time and it becomes 16 hours and 64… So it'd seem it'll take 18 hours and a half at this rate to prepare them all."
"Huff! Yeah. But lemme have a break too."
"OK. I don't think Boss will mind either."
Needle Man reported results to Yuriko who began to do some math: Needle Man grinned but then sighed and stretched.
"Well. I'll try to have another 4 ready by next hour and then I'll take a two-hour break… When I resume and if we go by that rate I should have the rest ready by about 6 AM tomorrow…"
"6 AM tomorrow, huh… The others have slightly lesser numbers to handle so I guess we'll all end at about that time… But we'll be tired anyway so we'll spend tomorrow resting and letting the servers run the final checks for bugs and such before unleashing them… Let's keep a backup copy: it'd be nice to remember the effort we put into those."
"Shah, shah, shah! Sure! See ya!"
Needle Man left the PC screen and Yuriko smiled: she hummed a tune and began to type into there.
"Heh, heh, heh. Even if they fail we'll leave a strong impression… Say! Let's materialize some too and now say Voldemort cast a spell on the anime so that they'd come alive. Heh, heh, heh."
"What's with the good mood? Ms. Yuriko."
"Ah! Boss. I was thinking of something good."
"Oh yeah? Tell me…"
"Simple! Let's materialize some of those and say Voldemort cast a spell on the anime to have them materialize!"
"Mwah, hah, hah! Hah, hah, hah! Then we'll achieve our goal of promoting terror and chaos across this worthless planet…"
Yoru Yami had popped his head into the room and Yuriko turned to explain her idea to him: he grinned and looked both eager and evil while rubbing his hands.
"IQ – sama would be pleased to know that! I'll go tell them in person through my hologram… They will know I am punishing those fools for daring to dethrone them! And once those interlopers are out of the equation then… I shall rescue IQ – sama… And those "profitable" will be thrown into the Living Naraku… IQ – sama has plans for some of them too and it would be fitting to see them materialize…"
"Yikes." Yuriko gulped.
The villain walked away and closed a door before starting to laugh aloud in a creepy tone of voice.
"Hah, hah, hah! Hah, hah, hah! Hah, hah, hah! Hah, hah, hah! Ha~h!"
"That's why I say I prefer Regal to that guy… He was evil and such but at least he wasn't so cruel like this guy is…" She grimly muttered.
"Ironies of life…?"
"YIKES! S-Slur – sama…!"
"Hmpf… So who is feeling the terror and fear now? Can you answer that?"
"Huh! Well… That's…"
"How ironic…"
Slur suddenly showed up on her computer screen and Yuriko gasped as she suddenly stepped back dragging the chair along: Slur formed her smug smile and looked amused at Yuriko's surprise.
"G-guess so…"
"Hmpf… I will not reveal anything yet…"
"Yet…?"
"Maybe you would be better off thinking about the future."
"You mean to say that he's going to lose?"
"If he lost to his "Kyoudai" back in the desert planet then… And beware: he might try to force into you a sinister mission… Like he did to your other self…" She turned serious.
"W-what?" She whispered.
"You say your memories of your past were sealed by "Duo" yet you still cling into one memory…"
"W-well, yeah…"
"But… Suppose the rest of your memories returned… Would you still find a "home" in "Neo Gospel" or…?"
"Huh… Good point…"
"I will not do anything yet… One day… You might realize the fright of Yoru Yami… The reason he's keeping you is because you still feel "evil" and ready to do "evil" yet… When your usefulness expires…" She narrowed her eyes and looked threatening.
"Yikes." She gasped.
"A warning is warning, Oozono Yuriko… And I made sure they are not hearing, anyway. Be warned. Think about it. Think…"
Slur came out of the screen and Yuriko sighed: she took out the sunglasses and then looked at the ground with a worried look.
Heck. I got into a tight spot… Oh well. I guess I can just try to surrender to the Net Police and maybe I could try to fix some of the damage I've done during this time… I don't feel like having "fun" anymore… Mariko… Can you still accept me for who I am…? What am I going to do…?