Mimic feels numb. It's not the same kind of cold numbness she'd felt months ago, when the Hikaris had first taken her in - but it's close.
She . . . she used the Dark Chip on ProtoMan. She'd used it, after telling herself that she wouldn't let it happen. And now he's gone insane. Because of her.
Why does she always hurt him? First with the Poltergeist Program, and now with the Dark Chip. Both are a direct result of her own actions.
She barely even registers what happens after ProtoMan locks himself inside her PET, but she sees it all happen as if she's watching from a distance.
A sizeable force of Net Savers mixed with Net Police officers arrive, and they swarm the ship. Famous and Manabe are with them, and they find Mimic and Lan in the control room, still frozen and staring at Mimic's sparking PET.
No one can pick up her PET. It hurts to even touch it, and sends pain shooting through the muscles of anyone who gets too close to it. Mimic somehow manages to force herself to move, and she unties her faded hoodie from around her waist and wraps her PET up in it. She can still feel the sparks even through the material of her hoodie, but they feel more like pins and needles rather than actual pain, and she doesn't drop it even as Famous leads her and Lan onto a waiting helicopter.
They head straight for SciLab. Dr. Hikari is already waiting for them, and he takes them into a Navi examination room. There's a glass cylinder in the middle of the room, connected by wires to a bunch of different consoles along the walls, and Dr. Hikari gets Mimic to place her PET into one of the slots.
Most of the machines in the room start to spark and the lights flicker. Dr. Hikari ignores all that and gets to work immediately, and moments later, the Poltergeist appears inside the glass cylinder, crouching on all fours and pressing itself against the glass as far away from everyone as it can get inside its prison. All at once, the machines and lights stop freaking out, but Mimic's PET keeps sparking and the glass cylinder starts to let off the same black sparks as well, though they're less intense and only happen in short, random bursts.
After that, Mimic kind of loses track of what happens.
She must dissociate or something, because one moment she's standing, watching the Poltergeist hiss and screech inside the glass cylinder, and then the next she's sitting on the floor, wrapped in a warm blanket, though she's still watching the Poltergeist.
She's not sure why she's wrapped in a blanket. She doesn't feel cold. She just feels numb.
Chaud's not reacting to anything that anyone says. It's like he doesn't even hear anything - Dad had to direct him to put his PET into the examination slot physically, showing him what he wanted him to do, because telling him had only led to Chaud staring at him blankly.
It's . . . strange. Dad thinks Chaud's hearing is probably the most sensitive any human has ever had, and yet Chaud doesn't seem to hear a thing anymore.
And when Lan had wrapped him in that blanket, Chaud hadn't even reacted. He'd just stood there, nor had he resisted when Lan gently pulled him to sit down on the floor. He just kept watching the Poltergeist in total silence.
Lan's scared for him. And not just because of that - and not just for Chaud himself, either.
He's scared for ProtoMan.
The Poltergeist is still active, hissing and occasionally letting out wild screeches, but aside from that, it doesn't move much. Its shadows writhe and lash out, but its actual body only presses against the glass of the capsule Dad had trapped it in, as far away from everyone as it can get when it can't go anywhere. Lan's not entirely sure, but when he glances at the programming for the capsule, it looks . . . awfully familiar.
"Dad," he murmurs. "Is . . . is that the cage the Gospel beast was kept in?"
" . . . Yes," Dad replies quietly. "I never intended for it to be used like this, but . . . we were studying it, before all this trouble with the Darkloids and Nebula started. I didn't . . . I didn't ever think we'd have to use it to keep ProtoMan contained."
Dad leans over the console he's working at. Despair seems to overtake him for a moment, but before Lan can reach out and try to offer some kind of comfort, Dad takes a deep breath and looks up again.
An error alarm sounds from the console he's working at. Lan glances at the screen, and sees an entire code's worth of errors piling up and overwriting everything that Dad's trying to do. Dad grits his teeth and tries to counter it, but the errors delete everything, and all his work vanishes.
"Dammit," Dad mutters. "I don't know what kind of Dark Chip this is, but it's far different than any we've encountered before. I can't even scan it properly without risking this happening again and again." He sighs, putting his hand to his forehead for a moment. Then he glances at Lan. "Do you have any idea where Chaud got this thing from?"
Lan shakes his head. "I didn't even know he had it until . . . until ProtoMan told him to use it," he replies. He can't stop his voice from trembling at the memory of it. "I think- I think they knew it was different, somehow. But . . . I don't know where they got it from."
"Well," Dad says, turning back to the console, "wherever it came from, I can't figure out how to study it. Given some time, I can probably manage it, but . . . I don't know what it'll do to ProtoMan in the meantime. I scanned his data - as much as I could, anyway, with the Poltergeist fully active. The Dark Chip seems to be overwriting his core programming."
The floor seems to vanish from underneath Lan's feet. Dad reaches out and steadies him, though Lan hadn't stumbled - maybe he just looked like he was going to collapse.
"What . . . what does that mean?" Lan asks hoarsely.
"I don't know," Dad says. "ProtoMan's programming makes it nearly impossible to scan him anyway, but with the Poltergeist Program fully active and this Dark Chip overwriting his programming . . . I have no idea what it's doing to him."
"It's turning him into a Darkloid."
Lan and Dad startle at the voice.
It's flat, almost monotone, and barely above a whisper. But they hear it anyway, because Chaud hasn't said a word ever since he downloaded the Dark Chip, and hadn't even seemed to hear a thing for the past several hours.
Chaud isn't looking at them, though. He's still got his eyes fixed on the Poltergeist - they're hollow, dull, so close to how he'd looked back when he'd first started living with them that Lan's almost scared he's spiralling back into whatever mindset he'd been trapped in back then.
"A . . . A Darkloid?" Dad repeats. His voice softens automatically when he talks to Chaud, but Lan can hear the disbelief underneath that. "How is that possible?"
"Don't know. Can't remember," Chaud says flatly. "But that's what it's doing."
Dad stares at him for a moment, his horror visibly rising, and then he whirls around and frantically types away at the console. He's trying to figure out if there's any way to stop the Dark Chip from . . . from turning ProtoMan into a Darkloid, but Lan can tell it's nearly hopeless - if Dad really can't figure out how to study it, the Dark Chip will overwrite ProtoMan's programming and he'll be-
He'll be their-
Lan bites his lip, and forces himself to finish his thought.
ProtoMan will be their enemy.
Mom shows up later on, with Ragdoll in tow. Chaud's giant black cat doesn't meow - Lan doesn't think he's ever heard Ragdoll meow - but he trills quietly, and somehow that gets Chaud's attention even though he's gone back to ignoring everything except for the Poltergeist again.
Ragdoll starts straining on his lead, and Mom lets him go. He immediately goes over to Chaud and crawls into his lap, settling down inside the blanket and pressing his face against his owner's stomach. He starts purring, and Lan's not entirely sure, but he thinks that the Poltergeist's crazed hissing quietens just a little bit at the same time, almost as if it recognises Ragdoll's massive purr.
Chaud shifts so his arms are wrapped around Ragdoll. He rocks a little, blank expression wavering for a split second, but he never once looks away from the Poltergeist.
"M-Mom?" Lan calls plaintively.
Mom glances over at him. As soon as she does, Lan launches himself at her and wraps his arms around her middle, burying his face in her stomach. He feels his mom's arms coming up to hug him in return, and hears her murmuring gentle comfort to him.
Mom lets him get his distress out of his system. By the time his tears are dry, he feels a little better - but he's still scared for Chaud and ProtoMan, and Arcadia, who no one's heard from ever since the battle.
He's still around, as far as Lan knows. MegaMan had said that Arcadia showed up in Lan's PET as soon as ProtoMan had locked himself inside Chaud's. But Arcadia had hidden himself in a corner and refused to come out, wrapping himself up in his wings like how Chaud's wrapped up in that blanket. No one's heard a peep out of him since then.
Lan pulls away from Mom, and she puts a gentle hand on his head before heading over to Chaud. She settles down beside him, reaching out and drawing Chaud into a careful one-armed hug. Chaud doesn't react, even when Mom leans down to murmur something to him.
Lan bites his lip and turns back to Dad. He'd glanced up briefly when Mom had come in, just to acknowledge that she's here, and had gone straight back to trying to figure out how to stop the Dark Chip from overwriting ProtoMan's programming. It doesn't look like he's gotten any further with his progress, though.
"Dad?" he murmurs, stepping closer so he doesn't need to be so loud. Chaud would probably hear him anyway, but he's still not paying attention to anything aside from the Poltergeist - or his cat. "I . . . I wanted to ask . . . there's something I was wondering . . ."
"What is it?" Dad asks, glancing at him to let him know he's listening.
Lan swallows and fights to get his question out. "Why- why did ProtoMan lock himself in Chaud's PET?" he asks hesitantly. "I m-mean . . . he went completely insane. He didn't have any control over himself at all. So . . . why did he go back to Chaud's PET?"
Dad pauses for a moment, looking thoughtful. "That might have been the Poltergeist's influence," he replies. "It's been in ProtoMan for so long that it's been influenced by him, remember. It most likely sees Chaud's PET as a safe place, so it locked itself in there - both to protect itself and everyone else. If ProtoMan didn't have the Poltergeist Program inside him, I suspect he would've just left the ship's network entirely."
Lan's not sure which would be worse. On one hand, with the Poltergeist Program influencing ProtoMan enough to make him go into Chaud's PET after going insane from the Dark Chip, they still have ProtoMan - but they also have to watch him go through all this pain and torment. On the other hand, if ProtoMan didn't have the Poltergeist Program, they wouldn't have to watch it - but he would've immediately vanished, which might've hurt Chaud and Arcadia even more, and no one would know where he would've gone.
He wonders if this is how Chaud feels whenever he has a dream about the future. How many times has Chaud wondered if letting things play out like they did in his dream would be better than trying to change whatever happened? How many times has he regretted doing something, or doing nothing, only to find out that whatever he did or didn't do only made things worse?
How would Lan feel if he had known something this terrible was going to happen to MegaMan, and he didn't know how to stop it?
I'd be exactly where Chaud is right now, Lan thinks.
A day passes by. Mom takes Lan back home, so they can get some sleep - Dad stays at SciLab, still trying to stop the Dark Chip from overwriting ProtoMan's programming, and Chaud stays exactly where he's been sitting for the past several hours despite Mom's gentle attempts to get him to come home and rest.
He's been kidnapped and tortured. He needs to sleep, or rest, or something.
But he doesn't move. Lan can understand why - he's probably scared that something'll happen to ProtoMan as soon as he leaves. So he doesn't go home, and Dad promises Mom that he'll look after Chaud while they're at SciLab.
He heads back to SciLab in the morning, without Mom. She says she needs to look after the house, and Lan can tell that she has a lot of nervous energy - if the only thing that can help her burn it off is cleaning the house or cooking or whatever, then he's not going to protest her staying behind. She makes him promise to let her know if anything changes, either with ProtoMan or with Chaud.
When he gets to SciLab, Dad's still working. Famous has joined him now, but even their combined efforts seem to be useless. Chaud, on the other hand, still hasn't moved.
It can't be comfortable, sitting on the floor like that. He's still got that blanket wrapped around him, and Ragdoll's still curled up in his lap, but as far as Lan can tell, Chaud has not moved a single inch since last evening. The dark shadows under his eyes look even worse than they usually do, a sure sign that Chaud hadn't slept at all. Lan has to wonder if anyone in this room slept last night, and feels a flicker of guilt that he managed to get a few hours while everyone else was awake.
He settles down next to Chaud, though his friend doesn't react. Lan hopes that nothing comes up today - he doesn't want to deal with any Net Saver missions while his friends are suffering.
But it seems the universe hates him almost as much as it hates Chaud, because a few minutes after he arrives, Famous's PET goes off. He walks away for a moment to answer it, and Lan's heart sinks when he hears the words Net Saver escort.
He tries to tell himself that there are other Net Savers, and Famous can just send one of them - but Famous turns to him, and Lan knows he can't get out of it.
"A fashion designer called Eve Morechand was almost kidnapped earlier," Famous tells him. His voice seems strangely loud in the subdued silence of the room. "A Net Saver escort is required as a bodyguard for the duration of her show."
"Why can't someone else do it?" Lan asks, voice a little hoarse from not talking for so long. He wonders how Chaud manages to speak when he hardly talks at all, then realises it's because Chaud barely says anything even when he does talk.
"They think the attempted kidnapping was the work of Nebula," Famous explains.
Lan feels Chaud tense beside him, and fights to push down a surge of despair mixed with frustration.
"Why would Nebula be after a fashion designer?" Lan murmurs.
"She's created a new way to use wearable computers," Famous tells him. "Nebula might be after her designs." He pauses as Lan sighs, his expression softening with sympathy. "I know you want to stay here, but we still need you to help keep the peace. If I could send someone else, I would, I promise you that. But I can't."
Lan can guess why - it's because he's the only person left who can fight Nebula on their own terms, in the real world if need be. ProtoMan is out of commission, Chaud's not responding to anything, and Arcadia hasn't been heard from since he hid himself in Lan's PET.
Lan and MegaMan are the only ones left. There's literally no one else.
He sighs again and stands up. Chaud still doesn't react - aside from tensing up at the mention of Nebula, he hasn't moved since Lan came in - and he feels a wave of sadness washing over him. If there was anything he could do to make things better for Chaud, he would do it in a heartbeat.
He turns to leave, but pauses when he feels a tug on his sleeve. Surprised, Lan glances down, and finds Chaud staring up at him.
His expression is still blank, eyes still dull, yet Lan can feel some intense emotion, as if Chaud's trying to tell him something. He hasn't said a word since telling them what the Dark Chip is doing to ProtoMan, and Lan's scared he'll go back to how he used to be before he started using Cross Fusion, when he didn't speak for so long that he almost lost his voice entirely. But he can tell Chaud's trying to say something now, even though he's completely silent.
The mission, Lan realises. Chaud's trying to tell him something about his mission.
There must be some kind of danger, something different to what he'll expect. It's just a bodyguard job, but the last person he was assigned to guard was Dr. Regal, and look how that turned out.
"I'll be careful," Lan promises. Chaud's grip on him doesn't waver. "I'll keep a lookout. I promise."
Finally, Chaud's hand slides down, and goes back to resting on Ragdoll's back. Chaud continues staring at Lan for another moment, then he blinks and turns back to the Poltergeist.
Lan watches him for another moment, and then he turns and walks out of the room with Famous. As the commander of the Net Savers gives him more details about his mission, Lan tries to work out what Chaud was trying to tell him.
He can't let anything distract him. He'll be careful and he'll keep a lookout, like he promised Chaud. Whatever Nebula is doing this time, he won't let it happen.
After Lan leaves, Mimic feels strangely cold. He hadn't put his arm around her, yet when he leaves, it's like there's a sudden gust of wind, cold and slicing into her, as if he'd been sheltering her from it the entire time.
It had been the same when Haruka left. Though at that point, Mimic hadn't been cold, and Haruka had still wrapped her into a one-armed hug and cuddled her against her side. Then she'd left and Mimic had been cold.
Dr. Hikari's the only one still in the room. So is the Poltergeist, though it does nothing except hiss and occasionally screech. At first she hadn't known where Arcadia was, but a few minutes after Lan had settled down next to her, he'd taken out his PET to check on it and she'd noticed a white cocoon of feathers just barely visible in the corner of his screen.
So Lan and MegaMan are looking after Arcadia. She's not sure how she feels about that - relieved, yes, but it's nearly drowned out by the numbness, and there's some other emotion she can't figure out mixed in with it, too faint for her to work out what it is, but she can tell it's dark.
Whatever that dark emotion is, at least she knows where Arcadia went.
She knows where Lan went, too. A bodyguard mission. For . . . that Eve person. Eve More-something or other. With the fashion show and everything.
She'd tried to warn him, somehow managing to summon the energy to stop him from leaving long enough to try, but she couldn't force anything out even when Lan was looking at her. Yet he'd somehow understood - though she couldn't tell him exactly what was going to happen, he'd understood that something would happen, something unexpected, and he'd promised to be careful.
Mimic still doesn't know how he knew that something was going to happen to ProtoMan - that this was going to happen to ProtoMan - but however he knew, he seems to be taking her warnings seriously now.
That . . . that would've been a lot more useful before all this happened.
A few minutes after Lan leaves, Dr. Hikari suddenly sighs and rolls his chair away from the console, rubbing his eyes. She can hear his stomach grumbling faintly, and then it gets louder - loud enough for him to hear it, too - and he grunts and stands up.
"I'm heading to the cafeteria," he announces. "Chaud? Do you want anything?"
Dr. Regal's head on a spike.
She shakes her head. Dr. Hikari seems relieved that she's actually responded, even if she doesn't want food.
He comes over to her and lays his hand on her head for a moment, then leaves. She's alone except for the hissing Poltergeist and Ragdoll, curled up and warm in her lap.
The silence drags on - or as silent as things can get with the Poltergeist making noise. She hears nothing from the outside aside from the faint sounds of the usual hustle and bustle of SciLab; if her hearing wasn't so sensitive, she wouldn't hear that at all, and this room would probably feel even more isolated than it already is.
The faint sounds of other people is mildly irritating.
Everything seems too loud after being forced to listen to high- and low-frequency sounds for however long. She just wants things to be quiet for a while, but she can't even get that.
A flash of anger splits the numbness, and then suddenly she can think again.
Mimic!
She doesn't flinch, because Chaud's voice is mental and it's pretty much the same volume no matter how much he'll scream at her. But it's startling to hear him; she hadn't realised it before, but her thoughts had seemed to be clouded, like she was trying to walk through a fog and couldn't figure out which way to go.
Strange that a flash of anger managed to cut through that fog. Why does it always seem like anger is the one emotion that motivates her more than anything?
I've been trying to talk to you for hours . . . Chaud sounds upset. He feels upset - she can feel it flooding through their connecting, and wonders how the hell she hadn't even noticed.
I don't think my mind was working right, Mimic replies.
I know, he murmurs. It was . . . it was like . . .
A fog, she finishes for him, when he can't say the rest.
Mimic looks at the Poltergeist. It's still doing exactly what it's been doing for past last day and however-long-she's-been-here, but she sees it with clearer eyes now. She suddenly sees everything with clearer eyes. That fog had really been fucking up her brain.
Will he be okay? Chaud asks her. She can feel his worry and fear for his Navi - their Navi.
. . . He's gonna turn into a Darkloid, Mimic tells him.
I know. Chaud's voice catches on the last word. You told Lan and Dr. Hikari what the Dark Chip is doing to him. But . . . but will he be okay, after all this? Will he come back?
One of the last episodes of Axess had focused entirely on trapping Dark ProtoMan in some abandoned warehouse and forcing vaccine chips into him. Chaud had Cross Fused with him to fight the Dark Chip from the inside while Lan and MegaMan were forced to deal with the monster that Chaud and ProtoMan turned into, but with all of them working together, they managed to get rid of Dark ProtoMan and bring back the real ProtoMan.
Looking at the Poltergeist now, Mimic . . . honestly doesn't know if things will play out the same way.
She hopes they do - dammit, she wants to get ProtoMan back - but the ProtoMan from the anime had just been ProtoMan. This ProtoMan, her ProtoMan, has the Poltergeist Program, and she doesn't know how that'll change things.
We'll get him back even if I have to kill myself to do it, she vows.
I'd rather you didn't die, Chaud murmurs, but thank you.
Conviction sparks between them - a shared determination to save their Navi. Even if Chaud doesn't want her to die, she'll gladly give her own life if it means ProtoMan will come back. She'd do it right now if she could figure out how to get that damn Dark Chip out of his systems, but she's not that kind of smart and even Dr. Hikari can't figure it out.
She doesn't want to watch ProtoMan suffer and turn into a Darkloid. But she'll save him, she'll bring him back, and screw anyone who says she can't do it.
First, though . . .
Mimic gets up stiffly. She's been sitting here for ages and it feels like her bones are creaking, but Ragdoll slides off her legs and lets her stretch out, then pads after her, lead trailing on the floor (she should probably unclip it before it gets caught on a wire or something), as she heads over to one of the nearby consoles.
Do you think these things can send emails? she wonders.
Probably. Chaud sounds puzzled. Why do you want to send an email? And to who?
I couldn't warn Lan about the Eve Morechand thing, Mimic replies. Considering where he's going to be for this mission, he probably won't be able to do much of anything. And neither will we.
What do you mean?
As she works on bringing up an email program, Mimic gives him the details of the episode. She's not sure if she's gotten all of the details right, and she can't remember everything - a combined result of having to work off memory alone and the fact that the numbness is still there, just on the edges of her mind and waiting for her to slip back into it. Even so, she tells him as much as she can.
Supersonic sound waves? Chaud repeats incredulously. That . . . doesn't sound good.
No, it's not, she agrees. SparkMan used them to control the models, I think. Considering how sensitive our hearing is now, we'd probably be able to hear the sound waves.
And SparkMan might take control of us as well, Chaud realises. Now I see why we can't do anything. But why're you sending an email to Lan about this?
I'm not sending an email to Lan, she replies. I'm sending an email to MegaMan, which he'll pass along to Arcadia.
Won't he read the email though?
Only the first part, Mimic says. I'm gonna tell him to give it to Arcadia and to not read past whatever's in the first part. He's not Lan - he won't read beyond that if I tell him not to, even if he's curious.
What're you gonna tell Arcadia? Chaud asks curiously, just as she finally manages to figure out how to get the email program up.
Ms. Yuri is after the password to get into the Aerospace company next door, Mimic tells him. I can't remember exactly why she wants to get into the building, but in the anime, you took the password and replaced it with a fake one to stop her.
But we can't do that now, because we can't risk going near the buildings, Chaud says. And Lan and MegaMan will be busy trying to deal with SparkMan and the models.
But not Arcadia. Mimic finishes the thought. If he's still willing to listen to me, he can go into the Aerospace network and switch the passwords. Ms. Yuri won't be able to get jack shit, and Lan won't need to worry about having to do ten things at once.
He will listen to you, Chaud says. It's Arcadia - he loves you just as much as . . . just as much as ProtoMan does.
She wavers for a moment at the mention of ProtoMan's love for her.
I love you, he'd said, moments before the Dark Chip had turned him insane and he'd gone on a rampage as the Poltergeist.
Mimic wonders if Arcadia hates her for effectively murdering his big brother.
He doesn't, Chaud says, with as much conviction as they'd shared when making their vow to save ProtoMan. And you didn't.
Mimic clenches her fists for a moment, takes a deep breath, and then starts to type out the email.
A few minutes after she sends the email, Dr. Hikari comes back. He sees her sitting on a chair - not the one he'd vacated, a different one - while she's unclipping Ragdoll's lead, and he stops dead, staring at her like he's seen a ghost.
Mimic watches him carefully. She's not sure what kind of reaction he'll have to seeing her do anything other than stare blankly at the Poltergeist.
She sees the plate of food in his hands and suddenly realises how hungry she is.
The last thing she'd eaten . . . it was that ice cream Anetta had bought her, right? And it's been more than a day since then. Mimic's gone far longer without food before, but that doesn't mean she wants to do it again.
"Can- can I have s-s-some?" Mimic asks faintly. She also hasn't spoken for ages, but that's not as unusual as not eating for a long time.
Dr. Hikari puts down the plate of food. In a flash, he's crouching in front of her, wrapping her into a hug that's so tight she can feel his entire body trembling.
Mimic rests her cheek on his shoulder and reaches up to clutch at his shirt. She doesn't think she has the strength to hug him back - not properly, not yet - but she wants to do something, because it seems like he needs to know she's actually responding to things again.
She feels a flicker of guilt. How worried have the people around her been while she was trapped inside that mental fog and drowning in numbness? How much did she scare them? They probably thought she was dropping back into that cold numbness she'd been in back when the Hikaris had first taken her in.
After a minute or two, Dr. Hikari finally draws back. There's a look of intense relief on his face, and one of his hands linger on her shoulder, slipping off when he goes to grab the plate of food.
"Here," Dr. Hikari says, handing it to her. "Take as much as you want. I'm . . . I'm just glad you're doing better."
"M'sorry," Mimic mumbles, looking down and tightening her grip on the plate. "Worried everyone."
"We're always going to worry about you," Dr. Hikari tells her softly. "Whatever happens, that'll never change. Now, go on. You haven't eaten for over a day."
She wants to point out that he hasn't either, but seeing her eat something would probably help him feel more at ease. She takes what she wants - there's nothing more than a couple of sandwiches and what looks like a cup of jelly, so she just grabs one of the sandwiches - and hands the plate back to him.
"Is there anything else you can tell me about this thing?" Dr. Hikari asks, later on. He's holding the Dark Chip between his forefinger and middle finger, like he doesn't want to hold it properly for fear of catching whatever taint it has.
Mimic can understand that. She'd hardly wanted to touch the thing when she realised what it was, and just looking at it is enough to raise her hackles. Even worse is the burning guilt inside her as she looks at it, and sees the Poltergeist still hissing in its cage out of the corner of her eye.
"Got it from Amano," Mimic tells Dr. Hikari.
His eyes widen.
"Hatsuko Amano," Mimic clarifies, remembering that the only Amano he knows is Dr. Amano, the doctor who's friends with her therapist, Mizuki. She'd been involved in a lot of Mimic's Cross Fusion tests when they were trying to figure out how Cross Fusing with a half-cat Navi had changed Mimic's body and mind.
"Arcadia's former operator," Dr. Hikari says, nodding. "I remember Lan telling me about her a while ago, after we met Dr. Amano." He frowns at her. "But why did Arcadia's former operator give you a Dark Chip like this?"
"Didn't give," Mimic says. "Tricked. Tried- tried to . . . t-to . . ." She bites her lip, careful of her sharp teeth, and tries to get the words out. "Tried to f-f-f-force- force . . . me . . . to use it. In a- a N-Net-NetBattle. It w-was- it was different, s-so I didn't use it. Then- then went . . . went to . . ."
Dr. Hikari raises a hand and she stops talking.
"Would it be easier to sign this, instead?" he asks kindly.
"Head's . . . not clear," Mimic mumbles, fighting to keep her hands still in her lap. "Can't . . . can't think good. Just- just n-need to . . . need s-s-some . . . some time. To think. Can I?" She looks up at him desperately.
"Take all the time you need," Dr. Hikari tells her. "If it helps . . . I could try asking you questions, and you can respond to them. Would it be easier that way, instead of trying to describe everything yourself?"
Mimic feels relief flooding through her at the suggestion. She nods gratefully.
"Alright," Dr. Hikari says, nodding back. "First . . . how did Hatsuko Amano give you the Dark Chip?"
"Got into a fight," Mimic replies. This seems a lot easier than trying to figure out how to explain things on her own. "Grabbed m-my leg. Didn't realise it at the time. She- she put the-" Mimic stops there. She tries to get the words out, but no matter how much she tries, she can't say Dark Chip.
"She put it into one of your pockets," Dr. Hikari guesses. Mimic nods. "Do you know why she did that?"
"She hates me," Mimic answers, easily enough. "'Cus I- 'cus I have Arcadia."
"Ah," Dr. Hikari murmurs. "Right. I remember all that trouble with Raika - he thought you were a Navi-thief, because Hatsuko Amano had reported Arcadia as stolen. I assume she reported him as stolen out of spite?"
That's part of the reason - Amano also wanted Arcadia back, and if the Net Police had decided to take on the case at any point before Mimic became a Net Saver, there wouldn't have been anything she could have done to stop them from giving Arcadia back to Amano. Now, though, Arcadia's status has been changed to independent by the Commissioner of the Net Police himself, so no one can override that and Arcadia is free to live as he pleases.
But Amano did also report him as stolen out of spite as well, because she hates Mimic.
Mimic nods, and Dr. Hikari moves on to the next question.
"Do you know where she got it from?"
"Nebula," Mimic says. The name sticks in her throat, but it's easier to say than Dark Chip. "Ms. Yuri s-said . . . she said she gave it to her. When she was . . . when she . . ."
It's here that she wavers, unable to continue. The memories come back, and she hears the phantom high- and low-frequency sounds echoing in her ears. She flinches and covers her ears, but it's all in her head and she can't get rid of what she hears in her head.
The fog starts to creep in with the phantom sounds, threatening to pull her under again. She can hear Chaud trying to talk to her, but his voice is oddly muffled - which is weird because his voice is mental and it shouldn't be muffled, but maybe this is how it was when she was trapped like this.
She jolts when a hand drops onto her shoulder, and the fog scuttles back to the edges of her mind. She feels Chaud's relief almost like a physical thing, and looks up into Dr. Hikari's concerned expression.
"Are you alright?" he asks carefully.
Mimic stares at him, still trying to get her head together.
I don't think he knows what happened on Dr. Regal's tanker, Chaud murmurs. Lan and MegaMan didn't get a chance to say anything, since everyone was too focused on ProtoMan.
"She tortured me," Mimic says blankly. Dr. Hikari's hand goes still on her shoulder. "With . . . sound. Bad s-sounds. High a-and low. Made me hurt. Sick. Bad . . . sounds . . ."
" . . . Tortured," Dr. Hikari whispers. "You . . . you were tortured . . . Oh, god . . ."
His hand moves off her shoulder to cover his face.
"Should've taken you straight to the hospital," he mutters. "I didn't even check what condition you were in . . ."
"S'okay," Mimic mumbles, wanting to reach out and try to offer some comfort, but she's too nervous and unsure of how he'll react. "Didn't . . . w-wanna leave anyway. Still . . . don't. Not when . . . he's . . ." She glances at the Poltergeist, and Dr. Hikari follows her gaze.
He sighs and drops his hand to his lap. "I'll ask Dr. Amano to come by later," he tells her. "I know if I make you leave, you'll probably just find some way to sneak back in here, and you need some kind of checkup."
"'kay," Mimic agrees. She doesn't deny that she'd try and sneak back in - she probably would, because there's absolutely no way she's leaving ProtoMan to suffer alone.
The questioning continues after that, though Mimic can't really give him much more information. And Dr. Hikari doesn't seem too keen to question her, not after discovering that she was tortured while being held on Dr. Regal's tanker.
Lan's mission is over, and he's tired. It's way past evening now, practically night-time, and he almost wants to go home and rest, but he can't - not until he checks on Chaud and ProtoMan in SciLab.
Arcadia seems eager to get back, too.
It had been a bit of a shock when MegaMan told him that Arcadia had suddenly vanished. Lan's first panicked thought had been that Arcadia had run away or something, but MegaMan said that he'd gotten an email from Chaud to give to Arcadia, and it was only after reading that that Arcadia had vanished. Lan's not sure what the email said, but it was vital to their mission - Arcadia had managed to stop Ms. Yuri in her tracks, swapping the password for the Aerospace company next door to the fashion show while Lan and MegaMan were still trying to deal with SparkMan and the mind-controlled models.
Lan needs to thank Chaud for sending that email and getting Arcadia to help out. It doesn't take much thinking to realise this was probably what Chaud was trying to tell him earlier - but he couldn't, because he isn't talking right now. Though he'd apparently somehow sent an email despite showing no reaction to anything else other than the Poltergeist and Ragdoll.
Even if Chaud doesn't react, Lan still wants to thank him. If it hadn't been for Chaud's warning, Arcadia never would've been able to help them, and it seems that doing something like this has given the white owl-Navi some of his energy back. He's still not totally okay, but he wants to get back to SciLab and he's talking, which is a lot better than how he'd been before Chaud's email.
Lan finds his way back the room where Dad is trying to help ProtoMan, and comes to a dead halt in the doorway.
Chaud's . . . walking around. Ragdoll's following him, trilling and purring every so often, and Chaud steps around and over him almost effortlessly, like he's working off some excess energy or just wants to move around. Dad's still working at the console, but he glances over his shoulder when the door opens and spots Lan standing in the doorway.
Chaud pauses in his walking when he notices that Dad's stopped working, and follows his gaze. His and Lan's eyes meet.
His eyes aren't dull anymore, and his expression is a little more open, less blank than it was when Lan left.
He's hardly even aware of his feet moving. One second he's standing in the doorway, and then the next, he's launching himself at Chaud and wrapping him into a hug so tight that he can feel every one of Chaud's ribs through his shirt. He feels Ragdoll brushing against their legs, like he's joining in on the hug in his own way.
"You're okay," Lan whispers. "You're okay . . ."
He feels Chaud resting his chin on his shoulder, feels skinny arms coming up to hug him in return, and he's never felt more relieved in his entire life. He'd been terrified that Chaud was going back to how he was months ago, but it looks like he somehow managed to snap out of it - either on his own or because of something Dad did. It doesn't matter either way; all Lan cares about is that Chaud's okay again.
As okay as he can get with ProtoMan the way he is right now, but . . . whatever. Chaud's okay. That's all Lan wants to care about at the moment.
"Chaud?" a plaintive voice calls.
Lan steps back, but he keeps one arm around Chaud as he takes out his PET. The screen shows MegaMan standing next to Arcadia, who looks almost hesitant. As soon as he sees Chaud, tears well up in Arcadia's eyes.
"A-are you okay?" Arcadia asks. "I never . . . I never asked . . . a-after . . ."
"M'okay," Chaud mumbles. Lan has never been happier to hear his voice. "Are . . . wh-what about . . . ?"
Arcadia guesses what he wants to ask. "I'm okay too," he replies quietly, looking down briefly before raising his head again. "I'm . . . I'm sorry I wasn't . . . I'm sorry I . . ."
Chaud stops him from talking by placing a gentle hand over Lan's screen. Arcadia chokes out a sob and places his hands over Chaud's fingers, the closest they can get to touching when Arcadia's in the cyberworld and Chaud's in the real world.
Lan brings Chaud a little closer, and keeps his PET between them. He can see MegaMan putting his arms around Arcadia, mirroring what Lan's doing for Chaud.
ProtoMan should be here too, Lan thinks, before he can stop it.
He tells himself that ProtoMan will be here - when Dad figures out how to stop the Dark Chip from overwriting his programming and cures him from the effects of it. For now, though, ProtoMan will need to stay inside his cage. Lan hopes he won't get too angry or scared when he finally comes out; keeping him locked up is the only way they can keep him and everyone around him safe.
He doesn't let himself think about the other possibility - that ProtoMan won't get better, and Dad won't be able to stop him from turning into a Darkloid.