ProtoMan's quiet again.
It's not like the last time - last time, he'd only spoken when he absolutely had to, when Mimic needed him to translate her signing. That silence had been born of worry for Arcadia and the horrifying realisation of how similar Arcadia's situation was to theirs.
But this time, ProtoMan doesn't talk at all. Not even to translate for her.
Arcadia has to do it, stammering over the words and speaking so quietly that he has to repeat himself, sometimes in a louder voice than necessary (he looks embarrassed about it afterwards and Mimic feels nothing but sympathy for the nervous NetNavi). He translates her signed goodbyes to her new friends, and Lan is the only one who doesn't react.
When Mimic left the Mega Float, he'd just been staring blankly at the screen of his PET, apparently not noticing the tears running down his cheeks. The high-pitched noise and the sliding words saying DELETION going across the screen are the only things he seems to notice.
ProtoMan is more or less the same as Lan. He isn't crying, though - maybe he's in too much shock to cry, or he just isn't the type to cry, not that Mimic would know. She could ask Chaud, later, if he'll be willing to talk to her.
It had been different, in the anime. She knows that.
There are too many differences to name, but the main ones are easy. The arena didn't fall apart like it did originally, for one. For another, Lan and MegaMan won the N1 this time, not Chaud and ProtoMan.
And, of course, the most obvious one - ProtoMan's actually friends with MegaMan now.
Mimic doesn't know how ProtoMan had reacted to watching MegaMan's deletion in the anime. She never will. How he reacts now is how anyone might react upon watching one of your friends die in front of you.
Some things are the same, though. MegaMan had still shoved ProtoMan out of the way of PharaohMan's attack, taking it for himself and getting deleted in the process. And of course it hurts ProtoMan more now, because they were friends, and MegaMan saving his life means a lot more to him than it did in the anime, where they were just bitter rivals.
MegaMan's helped ProtoMan and Arcadia as much as Lan has helped her. He's the only Navi from the main cast's group who ProtoMan will willingly talk to and hang out with. He's also the only Navi from that group, aside from maybe Roll, who Arcadia is comfortable with.
Mimic feels the same hurt, the same shock, that ProtoMan does. Arcadia feels it too.
But Arcadia isn't silent. Mimic, despite her muteness, still uses her hands. ProtoMan doesn't speak, and he doesn't use his hands. He doesn't react.
He doesn't react when Mimic taps the screen with her finger, repeatedly until she feels like she's about to crack the screen. He doesn't react when she tries speaking, fails, and signs 'please talk' over and over until her hands ache. He doesn't react when Arcadia tries to talk to him, and he doesn't even react when Arcadia, out of desperation, scratches his face with his claws. He completely ignores Arcadia's babbled apologies, as well.
Mimic is almost exclusively focused on her PET when she steps out of the car that had been sent to collect her from the Mega Float. She goes through the front door of the Blaze mansion, and walks head-first into someone.
She backs up, startled, and looks up to meet the cold, angry eyes of Shuseki Blaze.
Mimic stuffs her PET into its holder before he can see the screen.
"Pathetic," Shuseki hisses. "I've never been more embarrassed in my entire life."
She has no idea what he's talking about. But then something clicks in her mind - she'd lost the Championship. She came in second place.
Oh.
Fear crawls into her throat as Shuseki continues, voice dripping so much poison she half-expects him to grow fangs and start spitting it out for real.
"The only reason I allowed you to enter that tournament in the first place is because you said you would win," Shuseki growls at her. He leans down, in her space, and it takes everything she has to keep still. "And you lost. Not once, but twice. You only got back in on sheer luck - if it hadn't been for that ridiculous draw, you would have lost in the third round, and that would've been it."
Mimic is shaking. She's cold, and it's got nothing to do with the gentle breeze at her back from the outside, and everything to do with Shuseki's death stare.
"Pathetic!" Shuseki suddenly shouts, lashing out.
The back of his hand catches the left side of her face. She stumbles back, feeling something rip on her skin, and sees the blood on Shuseki's hand. He's ripped open some of the stitches on her face and made the wound bleed again. It's been over two weeks since he'd attacked her with that knife, and it still bleeds when he hits her.
Her breath catches in her throat and her eyesight blurs. Shuseki sees the tears and looks disgusted as they spill over and trail down her cheek - just on the one side, because her other eye doesn't work.
"You've gone soft," Shuseki says, straightening. "I don't know when that happened. And I don't care. What I do know is that it made your performance in that damn tournament so dismal I can hardly even look at you without feeling sick."
That's okay, because the feeling is mutual. But he's sick with anger - she's sick with fear. No points for guessing which is the more powerful emotion, because fear's made her vomit twice already.
"I expect you to do better," Shuseki snaps. "And you will. Is that clear?"
Mimic can't talk, so she nods. It's more of an up-and-down jerk of her head, really.
But it's not enough for Shuseki.
"I said," he spits, reaching forward and gripping her hair tightly enough that it stings and brings fresh tears to her eye, "is that clear?"
"Yes," Mimic chokes out. "Ye-yes. S-s-sir."
That satisfies him, thank god. He pulls back and releases her hair, letting her stagger to the side and huddle against the wall, and turns to leave. Before he does, he glances over his shoulder.
"One more thing," he says coldly. "Your eye surgery is scheduled to take place in four days. And you'll be confined to your room for two weeks - more, if you don't behave yourself."
Then he's gone, leaving Mimic with nothing but cold fear and a deep, empty feeling.
Mimic spends the rest of the day - or whatever's left of it - hiding in her bedroom. It's almost too easy; this seems to be the one place Shuseki won't go. It still sets her on edge, because he might just be waiting for her to give him an excuse to burst in and attack her again, or he could be lurking outside for whatever reason. There's no way of knowing, and that scares her so much she has to sit on her bed and breath through a panic attack for several dizzying minutes.
"Mimic," Arcadia says faintly.
Her PET sits on the bed next to her feet. She's not panicking anymore, but the jagged feelings still linger on the edge of her mind, threatening to consume her again.
She looks at the screen, but doesn't try to pick up the PET. Her hands are trembling so much she'd probably just drop it.
"I . . ." Arcadia doesn't seem to know what to say. " . . . I-is . . . This is why . . . you and ProtoMan were s-so . . . understanding. A-and protective. Of- of me."
Mimic doesn't nod, but he seems to read her response from her expression.
"I'm . . . sorry," Arcadia whispers, hunching in on himself. "That . . . that you have to . . . go through this."
Mimic shakes her head, and reaches out with one trembling hand to tap at the screen, where ProtoMan is huddled in the corner. He's buried his face in his arms and he still hasn't said a word or even moved.
Arcadia makes a small, worried sound. He crouches next to ProtoMan and spreads his wings carefully, wrapping them around ProtoMan while he cuddles up next to him. ProtoMan twitches, just slightly, but he doesn't push Arcadia away. Nor he does he open his arms. It's something, at least.
Mimic wants to help, too, but there's only so much she can do when they're on one side of the screen and she's on the other. She lifts the PET - taking extra care not to drop it - and curls her body around it.
She raises her head and glances at the sliding glass doors.
Chaud looks back at her, tears in his eye. He doesn't sign anything, but his request is clear to see from his expression.
Look after him.
Because, no matter how much I want to, I can't.
Mimic doesn't sleep at all that night. Neither does ProtoMan, or Arcadia. They sit in silence, the only thing breaking it being the occasional shuffle from Mimic as she moves her stiff body, or the rustle of Arcadia's thick feathers as he adjusts his grip on ProtoMan's still-unmoving form.
She doesn't know if she's allowed to leave her room. Shuseki had said she'd be confined to her room, but what if he also meant for her to be confined before the surgery as well? He hadn't specified.
So she plays it safe and doesn't go outside, aside from the occasional trip to the bathroom. She encounters no one else and doesn't expect to, though she's still wary of Shuseki suddenly materialising out of thin air to yell at her for being out of her room.
And she also doesn't eat. No one brings food to her door, and she doesn't dare try to contact the mansion's staff to ask them to make something for her. If she does, she might find out that she's not allowed to ask for food.
For the entire day, nothing happens.
Mimic eventually gets tired of sitting on her bed, stomach empty and screaming at her for something to eat, so she gets up and starts pacing back and forth. Her legs wobble at first, having been sitting on her ass for so long, and her vision blurs with exhaustion from staying up the entire night, but she keeps walking, and eventually gets to the point where she can just ignore the aches and pains and the hunger gnawing at her belly.
ProtoMan still doesn't talk. Arcadia doesn't move from his position next to him, but Mimic occasionally hears him murmuring things, and she doesn't try to listen in case she's not meant to hear it. She catches Chaud signing whenever she glances at the sliding glass doors, but he's practising by himself she thinks - he's just signing random words. They're mostly right.
At one point, the hunger gets too much, so she has to sit back down on the bed before she collapses from the dizzy spells.
Night comes by again, without her even noticing, and not a word has been spoken for the entire day aside from Arcadia's quiet mumbling. The silence is almost deafening, but she can't bring herself to break it.
She doesn't sleep that night, either, unless you count occasionally blacking out for a second.
Mimic is halfway to being catatonic when Arcadia calls out to her again. It's early morning, she hasn't slept for two days, and she hasn't eaten since before the final battle of the N1. That's almost one and a half days ago.
"Mimic," Arcadia calls quietly. "Mimic!"
She jolts, and looks at Arcadia.
"There's something . . ." Arcadia gestures helplessly for a moment, and then points at one corner of the PET. "There's a thing. Two things. I don't know what they are."
Mimic looks at the corner of the PET. It takes her sleep-deprived mind a few seconds to work out what she's seeing, but her eyes widen when she realises what it is.
An odd-looking mark sits in the corner of the PET, slowly rotating in place. There's a second one above it, also rotating.
"It just appeared there," Arcadia tells her, when she glances at him. "I didn't even notice, until just now. I don't know what it is. I haven't . . . I didn't wanna do anything. Un-until I told you."
He doesn't know what it is, but she does. She remembers that these things are what appeared in the main cast's PETs - the memories of MegaMan that allowed them to revive him in SciLab. The pieces had all been combined together to form MegaMan's NaviMark, and they'd put that fused piece into MegaMan's frame data to bring him back.
She also remembers that there's a theory among the fandom that Chaud and ProtoMan had the final piece of MegaMan, and that's why MegaMan never woke up until after ProtoMan saved him.
But why are there two pieces?
There's only one Navi connected to the PET, and that's ProtoMan. Arcadia's independent, but maybe . . . maybe he's been hanging around so much that it doesn't matter. Maybe both of their memories of MegaMan have been converted into pieces of data, that can be used to save MegaMan.
Maybe this is how she can help ProtoMan.
[PROTO] Mimic signs. She repeats it again, and again, until Arcadia - with a whispered apology - smacks ProtoMan in the face and forces him to look up at her. [we can save MEGA]
ProtoMan speaks for the first time since MegaMan's deletion.
"How," he says flatly. The absolute lack of emotion - lack of anything - in his voice makes her wince.
[bits of data] she signs, pointing at the two rotating things in the corner of the PET. [we go to LAN and give him these]
She doesn't care if ProtoMan wonders how she knows this. He'll probably ask her how she knew, after this is over, but for now she couldn't care less. She just wants to help him feel better.
"Lan's probably distraught," Arcadia says quietly, and ProtoMan drags his blank gaze away from Mimic to stare at him. To his credit, Arcadia doesn't flinch. "If- if what Mimic says is true, then this . . . this might be what we need to help him. It might . . . help you."
Both of these Navis are psychic, she swears. ProtoMan can say what she needs to say but better, and Arcadia knows exactly what she's thinking.
"We can go and find Lan's house, and give him these . . . things," Arcadia goes on, almost desperately. "We might be able to bring MegaMan back!"
ProtoMan shifts his arms, opening up a little. He seems to be more animated suddenly, though he's still quite stiff.
"We can . . . save MegaMan," he says, slowly.
"Yes," Arcadia says, while Mimic nods.
ProtoMan looks down at his feet for several silent moments. Mimic is almost afraid he's gone back to being totally silent again, but then he suddenly moves, and pushes himself to his feet with an energy that, had he been human, he would never have been physically capable of exhibiting. Arcadia stands along with him, looking up at him hopefully.
For a moment, ProtoMan still doesn't speak.
Then he clenches his fists.
"Let's go," he says firmly.
ProtoMan becomes more animated as Mimic wanders through DenTech City. His energy seems to come back, and he speaks more and more, until he's almost babbling - it'd be funny, if she didn't remember the total unmoving silence they'd managed to snap him out of mere hours ago.
Mimic has no idea where Lan lives. She doesn't even know her way around the city - she'd usually left the navigating to ProtoMan, when they'd been hunting down viruses to practise NetBattling on.
She's completely lost and has no idea where the hell she is, but ProtoMan has a map of the city. It doesn't tell them where Lan Hikari lives, however, so Arcadia streams himself onto the internet and looks it up for them, and then takes over as navigator when he comes back.
Between the three of them, they manage to arrive at the Hikari household halfway through the morning. Mimic's almost dead on her feet by the time she walks up to the front door and rings the doorbell, but she forces herself to stay upright and ignore the blurring at the edge of her vision.
A minute or two after she rang, the door opens, and she's greeted with Lan's mother, Haruka Hikari.
"Hello," the woman chirps, and then she notices the state that Mimic's in and stifles a horrified gasp. "Oh my goodness, you look exhausted, are you okay? Who- oh! I recognise you!"
Mimic blinks at her. There's so much going on in that sentence she has no idea how else to react.
"You're the boy Lan told me about." Haruka's voice and expression softens. "It's Chaud, right? You're his new friend. And . . . you fought him, in the final battle a couple of days ago."
Mimic nods.
"Oh, it's so nice of you to come here, but . . . I'm sorry," Haruka sighs, glancing over her shoulder. "My husband has just come back, and Lan's other friends are here too, and . . . This may not be the best time. I'm terribly sorry-"
"Excuse me," ProtoMan says loudly.
Mimic brings out her PET and shows the screen to Haruka, so ProtoMan can talk to her face-to-face and doesn't have to half-shout.
"Please, Mrs. Hikari, we need to speak with your son," ProtoMan implores her. "We will not stay too long if you do not wish us to, but, please. This concerns MegaMan."
It's like he says the magic word. The second he mentions MegaMan, Haruka goes still, and she stares at them with an unreadable expression.
Then she blinks, and she nods.
"Alright then," Haruka says. She steps back and moves aside to let Mimic in. "Come on. They're all in the living room."
Mimic steps past her and waits until she's closed the door. Haruka leads her through the small hallway, and when she opens the door to the living room, no one notices them at first.
Then Lan's dad, Dr. Hikari, glances up curiously. He's sitting on a stool in front of Lan and the rest of the main cast on the sofas, who seem to have just finished discussing something - probably the plan to break into SciLab and save MegaMan.
"Hello," Dr. Hikari says, blinking in surprise. "Are you another one of Lan's friends?"
That gets the attention of Lan and the others. They all look shocked to see Mimic standing next to Haruka.
"We want to save MegaMan," ProtoMan says, without preamble.
"This might help," Arcadia offers, gesturing to the two pieces of MegaMan. "We're not sure what they are, but Chaud says they should help, so . . ."
Dr. Hikari gets up, frowning, and he comes over to Mimic. He's not as tall as Shuseki, but he still looms over her, and her sleep-deprived mind only registers tall-adult-male-looks-angry so her instinctive reaction is to back away with fear sparking in her chest.
"Dad," Lan quickly says, standing up and darting over so he's between them. "He's not good with tall people. Or just men. I dunno. Just- um. Keep back a bit. Please?"
This is stupid. She came here so she could help him, and here Lan is, helping her instead. But she can't move, her eye is fixed on Dr. Hikari and watching his every move - her recent encounter with Shuseki puts her into high-alert mode even though she knows this particular man is full of nothing but kindness and warmth and probably coffee.
Dr. Hikari backs up until he's at the stool, and he sits down. Mimic relaxes, just a little bit.
Lan turns to her and blinks down at the screen of her PET.
"Dad said it seemed like there was a piece or two missing," he says, beginning to smile. "I guess we know who had those missing pieces, huh? Thanks for coming, Chaud."
He leads her over to the others, who move aside to make room for her on the sofas. Mimic sits on the edge, Lan settling next to her, and gingerly places her PET onto the table.
Lan puts his empty PET next to it, and both devices start to let out a high alarm-like sound.
"Yeah, that's what happened when we put the others near each other, too," Maylu comments.
"Do you know how to connect your PET with Lan's?" Dr. Hikari asks her.
Is it just her, or is he deliberately making his voice softer when he talks to her? It doesn't do much to put her at ease, but the knowledge that he's trying calms her down a little bit.
"Here," Lan says, handing her some bulky-looking device she doesn't have a word for. "Just connect to this like you would when you're jacking in ProtoMan. It should make the pieces of data in your PET transfer to mine, when I plug it into my PET."
'Should' meaning that ProtoMan's piece would definitely be transferred, but no one's sure if Arcadia's will go with it. Independent Navis don't follow the same rules that personal Navis do, so maybe his piece of MegaMan's data will be the same.
But they're lucky. When Mimic connects her PET to Lan's, both pieces of data vanish and appear in Lan's PET, and then automatically combine with MegaMan's NaviMark in the middle of the screen.
Nothing visibly happens - MegaMan's data was already mostly complete when the others had given Lan all their pieces. But it looks more complete, somehow. Mimic can't explain how she can tell, it just . . . does.
The moment she disconnects her PET from Lan's is the moment her stomach decides to let out the loudest sound she's ever heard any stomach make, even her own.
A few of the others' first reaction is to laugh, but then they let out nervous and worried noises when she curls over and presses her hands to her belly. Her empty, empty belly that she hasn't put food into for nearly two days.
Fuck, she's hungry. And tired.
But they have to save MegaMan. She can sleep then, maybe. She's not sure about food, but she can deal with that when-
Someone places something on her lap. She doesn't even look at what it is, only registering that it's food, fucking hell it's food, and she practically inhales it and almost chokes before Lan slaps her back and she can breathe again.
"I've never seen anyone eat that fast," Yai comments, awed, "and I've seen Lan eat curry."
"He has not eaten since . . . since before the battle," ProtoMan explains, voice going quiet when he mentions the final battle of the N1.
The others don't notice his tone, they're busy focusing on his words.
"Since before the battle?" Maylu repeats, open-mouthed in her shock. "But that was nearly two days ago!" She looks at Mimic. "You haven't eaten for two days?"
"You look like you haven't slept for that long either," Lan mutters, leaning forward to peer at the one eye she has. Mimic can do nothing but blink at him, so he straightens and looks at Haruka. "Mom, can you get him something else to eat?"
Haruka opens her mouth to agree, but Mimic cuts her off with rapid movements of her hands.
"Save MegaMan first," ProtoMan translates for her. "Food and sleep later. Need to- Chaud. Chaud, I do not know what you are trying to say. Slow down."
Mimic growls quietly and wrings her hands together.
Why? Why can't she just fucking talk? She's trying to help Lan, and she can't even make herself talk, she can't even go five goddamn minutes without making things about herself like some selfish bitch.
Her vision blurs and she blinks, trying to clear it, only to be rewarded for her efforts with a dizzy spell. The air suddenly seems too thin, and her thoughts are too loud, like someone's screaming at her and trying to suffocate her at the same time.
It's not that hard to imagine Shuseki doing it.
"Calm down." Dr. Hikari's steady voice breaks into her loud thoughts. "Just breathe. It's Chaud, right? Chaud, can you hear me? All you need to do is breathe. Lan, can you-"
Lan makes a noise in agreement and leans close to Mimic, murmuring to her, telling her to copy him. He's just breathing, deeply and calmly, and she tries to match him but she can't, there's no air, her thoughts are too loud for this to work-
"You're okay," Lan whispers to her. "You're fine. You're safe. You're okay, Chaud."
Somehow, his voice cuts through the noise, and her thoughts start to go quiet.
The need to save MegaMan is still there, the need to do something - something in return for all the kindness Lan has shown her, for everything that he and MegaMan have done for her and ProtoMan and Arcadia. But the rest of it, those dark, loud, screaming thoughts are quiet for now, drowned out by Lan's voice and Dr. Hikari's quiet instructions.
"Have something to eat, first," Dr. Hikari tells her, when the noise is gone and she's can breathe again. "Then, we can head to SciLab and get MegaMan back. Is that okay with everyone?"
Mimic thinks they'd probably want to save MegaMan as soon as possible, but maybe witnessing whatever-the-hell-that-was makes them re-evaluate their haste. They agree, and Haruka goes off to grab some more food for Mimic.
She still doesn't know what the woman hands her, and she doesn't really care. It's food, so she eats it with a speed that impresses even Lan (though his impressed expression dims slightly when he inevitably remembers that she's only eating like this because she hasn't had anything for nearly two days), and when she's got enough food in her stomach, she looks up.
"I'm good," ProtoMan says for her, when she signs with considerably-steadier hands. "Can we go now?"
Lan glances at his dad, who nods.
"Yeah," Lan says, grinning. "Let's go save MegaMan."