"We have an email from Lan," ProtoMan says, a few days after the cybernetic eye surgery.

They're training, figuring out how to use more of Mimic's games in their strategies and how they can put the four new Mega Class chips into them - which is incredibly easy given how unique the things are - and they'd just randomly gotten the email in the middle of figuring out whether or not Arcadia's illusionary fire-creatures can be used as a battle tactic. The fire-creatures aren't really solid and vanish pretty quickly after being hit just once, so they're thinking about using them as a way to trick opponents rather than as a way to attack.

"It is video file," ProtoMan says, when he's opened the email. "Shall I play it, Mimic?"

"Yeah," Mimic agrees quietly. She hadn't been talking for a while, but she's started trying again, slowly - and only for single-word responses, because anything more than that is too difficult.

ProtoMan plays the video, and Lan's face fills the window it plays in.

"HEY GUYS!" Lan basically screams.

Mimic falls off her chair.

She hears MegaMan's voice gently chiding Lan over his volume and then a sheepish apology from Lan as she scrambles back into her chair. ProtoMan is standing next to the video, biting his lips and almost vibrating on the spot, while Arcadia just covers himself in his wings and lets out the odd squeak of repressed laughter. Traitors.

"Right, okay, no more shouting," Lan sighs, rolling his eyes. They can't see MegaMan, so he's probably recording the video. "Anyway! Chaud, ProtoMan - and Arcadia, if you're still with them - I've decided to record some videos and send them to you, while I'm on this vacation . . . trip . . . thing."

"Eloquent," MegaMan quips, unseen.

"Shh," Lan says, glaring at the corner of the screen - presumably where MegaMan is. He looks back at the camera. "And I also wanted to thank you guys for giving this to me. The officials emailed me a few days ago, saying you were declining the trip and that you wanted to give it to me, so, thanks for that! They also said they were gonna give you something else as a prize for second place? If you reply to this, maybe you can tell me!"

"Lan, you wanted to tell them what's happened so far," MegaMan reminds him.

"Oh, right!" Lan brightens. "So, currently we're all in Jawaii. I say 'we' because, well, Yai got the others together and they met me here, and apparently they're all gonna stay here for the next couple of weeks while I'm off on the rest of the trip. Guess it was a good thing they did, 'cus we got caught up in some weird stuff . . . Like, we got trapped on a ghost ship, for one thing. And, and! It turns out, MegaMan's scared of ghosts!"

"I am not!"

"You are!" Lan cackles gleefully. "You were shaking so much while we were on that ship, I was tempted to take a picture and send it with this video."

"Lan!" MegaMan complains.

Lan just laughs again. "So, anyway, after we fixed that - turns out it wasn't ghosts after all, just some really weird viruses - we went and checked out the Real Aki contest. Maylu and Yai entered, and so did Ms. Mari-"

"Ms. Mari came in by a paraglider because Yai wanted to ask her something about her summer homework," MegaMan breaks in.

"MegaMan!" Lan whines. "I was gonna tell 'em!"

"Should've been faster, then."

Lan blows a raspberry, and gets back to talking about his adventures. "So, anyway, they all entered, and then got kidnapped by this street cleaning robot thing. Me, Dex, and Tory dressed up as participants and then got ourselves kidnapped so we could rescue them, and then we went and saved Aki, who had been taken over by viruses! Ah, do you know Aki? She's a cyberworld pop star! She's really popular right now."

"And pretty," MegaMan adds with a dreamy sigh.

Lan gives him an awkward look for a second, and then shakes his head. "Yeah, MegaMan, IceMan, and GutsMan are all obsessed with her. I think Glide is, too, but he's better at keeping it quiet than they are. Roll isn't too happy, I think."

"Hey, ProtoMan, Arcadia! Check her out, you might like her!" MegaMan calls.

"Dude, stop trying to get every Navi you know obsessed with Aki!"

"But she's pretty and her voice is really good and she's so nice-"

"MegaMan, oh my god."

"You're just jealous she's not a real world pop star!"

Mimic exchanges a glance with ProtoMan as the video devolves into an argument over MegaMan's obsession with Aki.

Eventually, the dynamic duo remember what the video is supposed to be about, and break off their argument with hasty apologies - though Lan still shoots one last glare at the corner of the screen, to which MegaMan presumably responds in kind.

"So, yeah." Lan lets out a sheepish laugh, rubbing the back of his head. "Apparently we're heading off to Netopia next, somewhere called . . . Heaven's City? Or is it Heaven City?"

"I think it's Heaven's City," MegaMan says.

"That, yeah. That'll be tomorrow, for us anyway. I think Japan's . . . a few hours ahead of Jawaii?"

"You're a bit off there," MegaMan sighs. "Japan is nineteen hours ahead of Jawaii."

"Nineteen-!?" Lan chokes. "We didn't wake them up, did we?"

"No, I don't think so. It's currently eleven AM over there."

"But . . . it's like four in the afternoon here . . ."

"They're a day ahead of us."

"Oh!" Lan's expression clears. "Okay, great, at least we didn't wake 'em up by accident."

"I would've told you if we were going to, don't worry."

"Okay." Lan nods. "I'll check timezones more carefully next time, guys, just in case we're about to send an email at like two in the morning for you or something. Anyway, I'll send you another video when I'm done in Netopia! Hah, maybe something crazy'll happen there, too. Hopefully not ghost-ship crazy, or Aki-getting-infected-with-a-virus crazy, but something interesting."

Like MegaMan getting kidnapped, for one thing. Yeah, she knows how Netopia goes. Mimic's just not really sure how it'll go without her or ProtoMan there. She can't think of any way she can warn them without alerting anyone to her odd knowledge of the future, nor can she think of any way to give them a cryptic warning that wouldn't send alarm bells ringing for ProtoMan. Oh well.

"So, yeah, see you whenever we get that next video done!" Lan exclaims, waving.

"Bye, guys!" MegaMan quickly adds, before the video cuts off.

Mimic sits back in her chair, blinking slowly.

"Well," ProtoMan comments, "I suppose that will make confinement less boring, if Lan and MegaMan are going to be sending us these videos. Should I respond right away, or wait a while?"

"Wait?" Mimic repeats, raising an eyebrow. "Why?"

"We were . . . sort of in the middle of something," ProtoMan says, gesturing to Arcadia's Holy Fire illusions.

Oh. Right.

She'd honestly forgotten about that.

Lan's next video is emailed a few days later, earlier in the morning this time. It doesn't matter, because it had been another one of those nights where Mimic just could not get to sleep no matter how much she tried (Shuseki had been prowling down the hallway yesterday evening, checking she's still in her room and not sneaking out to go save the planet or something, so she'd been on edge the entire night), so Mimic's still up.

As are ProtoMan and Arcadia, who insisted on staying up with her. Chaud, of course, had no choice in the matter, but no one's sure if he feels the effects of sleep-deprivation like Mimic does. Not even Chaud himself.

"Hey guys," Lan begins, thankfully much quieter this time.

"Are you gonna start these videos with that sentence every time?" MegaMan sighs. His tone makes Mimic think he's rolling his eyes.

"What else am I gonna say? 'Greetings, honoured friends, we humbly present you with another video detailing our epic adventures across four countries'?"

"Oh, sure, you can use big words when you're mocking me, but the second you need to use any for homework-"

Lan sticks out his tongue.

"Yeah, anyway, moving on," he grumbles.

Mimic smirks to herself. ProtoMan's right - these videos are making the confinement less boring, and certainly a bit more entertaining. If only because Lan's the single most unpredictable human being on the planet.

Plus, she's also curious to find out if he's dealt with the Heaven's City bullshit yet. Or that Survival Seven thing. Since MegaMan's still arguing with him, either they've figured out how to get out of it, or they have yet to go near Survival Seven.

"This time we went to a couple of cities in Netopia!" Lan exclaims, a bright grin on his face once again. It's nice seeing it back. "I think I already said where we were going next, so, yeah. First place was Heaven's City - and you will not believe how corrupt the mayor of that place was, seriously."

She perks up at the use of 'was'. Does that mean what she thinks it means?

"Apparently he was expecting me, or something like that, and he put together this parade . . . thing," Lan says, handwaving it. "Just 'cus we won the N1, I mean, seriously. What a weirdo."

"I seem to recall you were lapping up all the attention happily," MegaMan deadpans. "Which was also how I got kidnapped."

Next to the video window, ProtoMan and Arcadia look startled.

"Yeah, but I found you again, so it was fine!" Lan protests, and the two Navis in Mimic's computer relax. "We met this guy called Raoul, he's a really good NetBattler. His Navi's called ThunderMan - don't worry, though, he's nothing like ElecMan. He's pretty powerful, though, so I gotta wonder how different the N1 would've been if they'd been there . . ."

"It was a national tournament, not an international one," MegaMan points out.

"Whatever!" Lan puffs. "Anyway. We were having a NetBattle with Raoul and ThunderMan, and then the mayor starts trying to tear down the whole of Downtown with construction vehicles, with everyone still there! We're lucky no one got hurt. We saved the day, of course, and Raoul went straight to the police and then the mayor got arrested for trying to hurt people and breaking stuff for no reason."

Mimic is pretty sure he probably went to prison for a lot more than that, but Lan is literally an eleven-year-old, so either that's all he was told or that's all he understood. She's also pretty sure the mayor was basically trying to kill people, so it's lucky he did get put away, otherwise the entire city would've had a murderer as their mayor.

Kind of horrifying to think about that, really. And she's glad that it got solved without her - or Chaud's, rather - interference.

"And after that, we went to this place called Brand City - and it was really, really rich. Like, seriously, I think even you and Yai might've been surprised at how much some of the stuff there costs, there was a bag I wanted to get Mom but I couldn't because it cost so much-"

"Lan, you're getting off-track," MegaMan interrupts.

"Right, gotcha. But the bag is kind of important! 'Cus, I was looking at it in the shop, and this guy comes up to me and he says I can get it for free if I win this game called Survival Seven. But it turns out, that game was a total sham! MegaMan had to go through seven different levels of non-stop battling, and when we thought the game was over, he was sent right back to the start!"

"I must've gone through those same seven levels at least three times," MegaMan groans.

"We had to use the Beta Sword to break out in the end," Lan says, nodding. "And then we got into a fight with someone called SnakeMan and apparently that impressed his operator enough that she just let us go."

"Tell them about the bag!"

"I'm getting to that, calm down! You know that bag I was talking about, the one that got me dragged into that Survival Seven mess? Mom sent me a video mail and she showed me the exact same bag we'd been looking at. I don't even know how the heck she got it!"

"Maybe SnakeMan's operator sent it to her, because we beat her game and impressed her?"

"I dunno, but at least Mom's happy." Lan shrugs. "So, yeah, that's what happened in Netopia. I can't decide if it was weirder than the stuff that happened in Jawaii . . ."

"I was kidnapped and then got dragged into an endless survival game," MegaMan points out, "so it was definitely weirder, in my opinion."

"Yeah, probably. We're going to Kingland next, a tour of the countryside or something, so that should be cool. Apparently there's this lake that has some kinda monster living in there, so maybe we can get a picture to show everyone when we get back! Okay, that's all for now, I'll send you another video when we're done in Kingland! Bye guys!"

"Bye bye!"

"You look relieved," ProtoMan says to her, when the video ends.

Mimic tilts her head inquisitively.

"When he spoke of the mayor of Heaven's City and then afterwards, when he was talking about that Survival Seven game," ProtoMan elaborates. "You appeared to be relieved. Is there any particular reason?"

[can I not be relieved my friends are okay] Mimic signs, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, of course you can, but it seemed to be more than that."

[mayor sounded like a piece of work] Mimic signs. [so did operator of snake]

"She's got a point," Arcadia says, frowning at the video file. "Lan did say that mayor guy was trying to bring down that Downtown place on people's heads . . . People could've been seriously hurt, or even killed, and Lan and MegaMan were right in the middle of that mess."

[operator of snake tricked them into survival game] Mimic adds, silently relieved that Arcadia came up with the perfect excuse, even if he doesn't know it.

"They do seem to have an astonishing amount of luck," ProtoMan muses. "Well, we know what they were up to in Netopia, at least. Since we are not currently training, I will reply promptly."

The third video Lan sends them is a bit shorter, probably because less happened in Kingland than Jawaii or Netopia.

"Greetings, honoured friends-" Lan begins formally, before MegaMan interrupts with a loud groan. "What, you said you wanted me to do something different!"

"I didn't mean pretentious, yeesh," MegaMan mutters. "That was terrible."

"Nyeh," Lan says, sticking his tongue out. MegaMan makes a similar noise in response. "Okay, so this time we're in Kingland, and . . . well, I'm not really sure what the heck happened, really."

"Lan was late getting onto a bus, but luckily the driver was nice and let him get on," MegaMan says, sounding amused.

"Stupid alarm clock not working," Lan grumbles. "We got caught in a really weird storm after that - and I mean really weird. I think we got attacked by viruses, before that, and then while the storm was happening, the bus just . . . moved itself? Or something?"

"We ended up outside an old mansion," MegaMan says. "I don't really know what happened, because as soon as Lan jacked me into the house network so I could talk to the security programs, I was . . . kidnapped. Again."

"You seem to be making the whole 'rescue MegaMan' thing a regular adventure," Lan says dryly.

"It's not my fault!"

"Uh-huh. I was trying to call for help while that was going on," Lan says, getting back to the story. "There was an old lady there, who wasn't really an old lady but was actually Count Zap in disguise, and we got tricked into fighting a NetBattle with him and ElecMan. I think he called it an Electric Feedback Battle? Something like that."

"Lan got shocked with electricity every time I took damage," MegaMan puts in, "but the same was true for Count Zap and ElecMan, so we used their own trick against them and won!"

"And then we got outside and apparently the storm had blown over like it was never there," Lan sighs. "Honestly, that was . . . a whole thing. I'd rather forget it ever happened, to be honest."

"We did go and visit that lake we told you guys about in the last video, though," MegaMan quickly says. "We didn't see any monsters, though. I'm torn between being relieved and being disappointed."

"'Cus you're a scaredy-cat who doesn't like ghosts or monsters-"

"I'm not a scaredy-cat!"

"He's lying, guys," Lan says to the camera, in a stage-whisper. MegaMan mutters something inaudible. "Funny. So, that was it for our Kingland trip, now all that's left is Namaste! I know it's the curry centre of the world, so I'm hoping to get some good eating in before I have to leave."

"There's more to life than curry, you know."

"Aw, c'mon! I'm not called the Curry Joker for nothing!"

"Literally no one calls you that."

"Whatever! I'll see you guys in the last video! Hopefully you won't be grounded anymore, cus it's been nearly two weeks already, so maybe we can hang out when I get back. See you!"

"Bye guys!"

As the video cuts out, Mimic is hit with a jolt of realisation - Lan doesn't know that her confinement has been doubled, for sneaking out to help save MegaMan. He'll need to be told, of course, if he's expecting to be able to hang out when he comes back. But hopefully he won't find out the reason, or else he might feel guilty and blame himself or something.

No, it's not his fault. It's Mimic's, because she's the one who walked out of those doors, not him.

"Do . . . do we need to tell them, that Mimic can't go out yet?" Arcadia asks hesitantly.

"We . . . should," ProtoMan replies, with a quick glance at Mimic. "If Lan does expect Mimic to be able to go anywhere, he will likely be disappointed if we do not tell him immediately."

"Sorry," Mimic mumbles, slumping in her chair a little.

"It is not your fault, Mimic," ProtoMan tells her gently. "You only wanted to help your friends."

Still doesn't make it not her fault.

Lan's last video starts off a little bit tamer, in comparison to the other three. He's kind of sad, and no points for guessing why because he says so in the first five seconds.

"Hi, guys," Lan says. There's a worried look on his face now. "So . . . you said you were grounded for double the time? So you've got two more weeks of being grounded?"

"That's what the email said," MegaMan says quietly.

Well, so much for not disappointing them. They're making Mimic feel even more guilty now, which is mildly impressive. Damn kids.

"I wanna ask why, but . . . I think I can guess." Mimic freezes as he carries on. "It's because you came out to help me and MegaMan, isn't it? I'm guessing you weren't supposed to, and you got caught, so . . . Agh! Now we can't hang out until the rest of your time is up! That's not fair!"

"Lan-" MegaMan begins, shocked.

"Doesn't your dad know that you went out to help someone?" Lan demands. "Did you tell him what you were doing, or why you went out?"

I didn't get a chance to, Mimic thinks, shrinking in on herself a little. Shuseki had beaten her with his belt the moment she'd gotten back. She hasn't seen him since, though she's heard him stalking past her room now and then.

"What kind of idiot punishes his kid for helping their friends?" Lan asks angrily. "If I ever meet your dad, I'm telling him what you did for us. Then maybe he'll apologise for being a jerk!"

Mimic's blood turns to ice at that. She exchanges a panicked look with ProtoMan and Arcadia.

If Lan says anything along those lines to Shuseki, there's no telling how the bastard will react. He might get angry enough to actually beat her in front of Lan. Or he'll wait until Lan's gone and then beat her, who knows. Or, even worse, he might go after Lan.

No, they can't let that happen. She can see the gears turning in ProtoMan's mind, already working out a way to word 'please don't yell at my operator's father or you'll just make things worse' without making either Lan or MegaMan suspicious or concerned, and she hopes he figures it out quickly. Or else they'll have a very serious problem on their hands.

Because, of course, Shuseki will never care why she went out. He doesn't care about the why, only the what, and the what is that she went out after being told she wasn't allowed to. Lan's just going to put fuel on the fire if he tries to help.

"Hmph," Lan says, crossing his arms. After a moment of sullen silence, he sighs. "Well, anyway, that's not the whole reason we made this video. It's supposed to be us telling you what happened in Namaste . . ."

"We met the remains of World Three," MegaMan says, apparently eager to change the subject. "Lan went on a huge curry tour-"

"The best two days of my life!" Lan exclaims, his sullen mood suddenly giving way to a much more cheerful one.

"-and he overate, of course, because he never listens when it comes to curry," MegaMan goes on, ignoring the interruption. "Then Yahoot tricked him into going into his restaurant, which we didn't know he even had so that was a surprise, and we were . . . well, corralled into NetBattling with the other three World Three members. On our own."

"Until the others showed up to save us," Lan chirps. "Apparently Yai has these digger things that they used to break through the ceiling. I don't even know anymore. But, they showed up and saved us! Oh, and we forgot to mention, MegaMan got two new Style changes from everything that we went through on this trip."

"WoodShield Style and ElecTeam Style," MegaMan says, "to go with the HeatGuts Style I got when I Style Changed the first time."

"They're really powerful and I can't wait to battle you guys with 'em!" Lan cries. Then he deflates a little. "But we'll probably have to wait a couple of weeks . . . Aw . . ."

"It's okay, Lan, we'll still have a week of summer left before you have school again, so you can challenge them any time!" MegaMan reassures his operator.

Lan brightens up. "Yeah, you're right!" he agrees. "And maybe I can give Chaud's dad a piece of my mind, too . . ."

"Well, that's all for now," MegaMan says, speaking directly to the mildly-horrified trio watching the video. "We're in Yai's plane right now, so we're on our way back. We'll see you guys when you're not grounded!"

"See you!" Lan cheers, just before the video ends.

ProtoMan immediately starts typing up a reply. He pauses constantly and deletes some of the words, clearly trying to figure out the best way to word what he needs to tell them. Arcadia tries to help, as does Mimic, but neither of them are any good with words, so in the end they have to let ProtoMan do it on his own.

When he's done, he sends it off. This is probably the fastest they've replied to any of the video mails that Lan's sent them, so hopefully that alone will tell Lan and MegaMan how serious this is. ProtoMan hasn't mentioned anything specific, of course, but he has written that there could be bad consequences if Lan gets angry at Shuseki. Lan's been in enough fights with adult criminals to know how bad things could get (though Mimic seriously doubts any of those said criminals would ever go as far as Shuseki, whatever she might have felt during the N1) if he doesn't listen to them.

Hopefully he does listen. And hopefully he won't ask any questions.

So far, he's kept his promise not to ask personal stuff. This . . . might be asking too much. But, still. They can- they can hope. Right?