A few days after Mimic starts going back to the utter disaster that is school, IPC begins losing money.
She checks the news, just to be sure, but she needn't have bothered - it's exactly what she thinks it is.
Mimic watches the news and wonders how no one else has noticed it. Every single business in the city is losing money, going bankrupt immediately or getting dangerously close to it, but Higsby's Chip Shop is soaring high.
"I do not understand," ProtoMan says, exiting the news report. There's a baffled twist to his mouth, and beside him, Arcadia looks just as bewildered. "I heard MegaMan and Roll once talking about that man's shop - apparently the only thing he ever sold is a game, and absolutely nothing else. So how is it that he is making so much money, yet IPC and every other business in the city is rapidly losing money?"
She's lucky she doesn't have GutsMan as a Navi, or some other dumbass. ProtoMan's more than intelligent enough to figure out the connection without her prodding and dropping hints.
"Maybe he's involved somehow," Arcadia says. He's not stupid either. Mimic feels a glimmer of something like pride as she watches him, tentative but confident in his own way. He's certainly making good on his promise to help them as much as he can.
"But . . . he is friends with Lan," ProtoMan murmurs, tilting his head. "And he did not seem the type to be involved in criminal activities . . ."
He's not, but Higsby isn't even aware of what's going on. Mimic knows he's too distracted with the fact that he can buy all the rare chips he wants without having to worry about his money running out. He's so distracted that he's not even wondering where all that money is coming from, and he's apparently not even taking any notice that every other business in the city is losing money while he's gaining it.
Mimic sometimes has to wonder why half the people in this reality are so stupid. It kind of gets better, later on in the series when things are less random and more focused on an actual plot, but the original series is extremely guilty of people being total idiots and missing the obvious thing that's wrong.
Like this, for example.
"I could go and check, if you want," Arcadia offers, breaking her out of her thoughts. "Unofficially. And- and I'm not actually affiliated with IPC, so it wouldn't be bad for the company or anything, right?"
"Technically, no," ProtoMan says thoughtfully. "What would you do, once you get there?"
"Um . . . check for . . . weird things?" Arcadia shrugs helplessly. "I'm . . . not really sure. I think, maybe, if there is something going on, I'll know it when I see it. NumberMan knows me, or I think he does, so I should be okay even if I do get found there."
Mimic isn't really sure if he will find anything. She knows, right now, that MagnetMan is probably at the bank, switching the accounts and whatever else he was doing (she doesn't really know, all she remembers is that he was moving boxes around and money was being put into the wrong place and literally no one noticed), but if Arcadia shows up in Higsby's network, MagnetMan might go back there. His operator - current operator, she should say - is that weird Gauss guy, who's only really threatening in the first series and gets a major downgrade as a villain after that.
She's not even sure if he's threatening right now.
He's rich, powerful, and an idiot. He's also a criminal.
Mimic can see the similarities between Gauss and Shuseki. It's hard not to, when they're both terrible human beings who also happen to be insanely rich and powerful and very well-connected. But she's ignoring it for now, because she can't let her fear distract her when she needs to sort this out before it goes any further.
"Perhaps we should look into the bank," ProtoMan says, turning to Mimic. "With Arcadia checking Higsby's network, we would be . . . covering all of our bases, I think the human phrase is."
Maybe if they get there quick enough, ProtoMan'll be able to catch MagnetMan before he runs off, like he had in the anime. She doesn't exactly remember how Chaud and ProtoMan had tracked him, but if they can draw him into a fight, it should be easy enough. And if Arcadia's already in Higsby's network, they really will have all their bases covered.
ProtoMan can send MagnetMan straight to Arcadia, who can either defeat him on his own or hold him until she and ProtoMan can get there.
The only problem with this plan is that Lan'll probably show up, too. It had taken both ProtoMan and MegaMan to take down MagnetMan and reveal Gauss as the asshole behind every business going bankrupt. Just hoping that Arcadia can take MegaMan's place might not be enough, if Lan and MegaMan still show up anyway.
And they probably will, since they'll realise what's up as well.
Mimic hasn't seen Lan since he and Maylu saved her from AirMan's gas attack. She hasn't wanted to, and still doesn't want to, because seeing him means that he might start asking her questions again.
She takes her mind off her worries about maybe seeing Lan again when she heads to the bank with ProtoMan, after Arcadia leaves for Higsby's network.
It's stupidly easy getting in. All she has to do is hold up her PET, let ProtoMan tell the bank staff who she is (who Chaud is), and they let her through eagerly. They don't even protest when she jacks ProtoMan into the bank's network to check things out for himself.
Apparently being the vice president of IPC has its perks. Nice to know.
She doesn't have the same senses that ProtoMan does, and she also doesn't have the luxury of simply being a viewer watching an anime, so it's ProtoMan who discovers MagnetMan first. He whirls around suddenly, a Proto Sword activated, and blasts out a Sonic Boom.
It hits something invisible, and then suddenly MagnetMan is there, scowling at ProtoMan.
"Who are you?" ProtoMan demands, brandishing his Sword at MagnetMan.
MagnetMan starts to ready an attack, but then a voice breaks in, ordering him to retreat.
"Track," Mimic tells ProtoMan quickly, because she's not sure if he's the one who tracked MagnetMan or if Chaud had done it. She doesn't know how, obviously, but she can get ProtoMan to do it.
Before MagnetMan can vanish, ProtoMan . . . does something. All Mimic sees is him holding out his hand, palm facing MagnetMan, and then MagnetMan is gone and ProtoMan lowers his hand.
"I have him," ProtoMan tells her, when he comes back to the PET. She pulls out the jack-in cord and begins making her way out of the bank. "It was not easy. Apparently his operator is a cautious person, if nothing else."
Still a criminal, Mimic thinks.
"The tracker should give me his location as soon as he stops moving," ProtoMan says. "And wherever he stops moving is likely to be his base of operations - and where his operator is, I would assume. If Higsby is involved in this . . . do you think . . ."
Mimic doesn't reply until she's sitting inside the car that brought them to the bank.
[would use number not that one] Mimic signs.
"Then, you think he is being manipulated?" ProtoMan asks. "And he may not know it?"
Mimic nods. It's basically the truth anyway.
"Where to now, sir?" the driver of the car asks, twisting around to look at her.
"Higsby's Chip Shop," ProtoMan tells him, after a nod from Mimic. "I will send you the location."
She wonders if the driver thinks it's weird, that he's taking orders from ProtoMan rather than her. But she can't talk to anyone who isn't ProtoMan or Arcadia, and the driver doesn't know sign language, so he'd end up sort of taking orders from ProtoMan anyway.
They haven't had any word from Arcadia yet, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. He could still be sneaking around in Higsby's network, undetected, so contacting him might blow his cover or something. And they've already confirmed that Higsby's network is where MagnetMan ended up, so for all they know, Arcadia could be fighting him right now.
It's starting to get dark by the time the car pulls up outside Higsby's Chip Shop - a new, towering skyscraper that he can only afford because a criminal is giving him all the money in the entire city. Which, considering DenTech is home to both IPC and Gabcom, is a considerable amount.
This is actually kind of fun, Mimic realises as she's getting out of the car. Running around, solving problems, getting to beat up a few bad guys in the process. And passive-aggressively insulting people's intelligence along the way. Maybe this is why Lan keeps doing it. Though he probably doesn't insult people's intelligence.
She walks into the lobby, meeting no resistance. It'd be easier if she jacks ProtoMan in now, so she finds the nearest jack-in port and sends him off, hopefully to find Arcadia or MagnetMan. Either would be fine, since he can either team up with Arcadia or beat MagnetMan senseless before she gets where she needs to be.
Mimic turns to find the nearest lift that can take her to the top floor of the building and sees Higsby running at her, yelling and brandishing a wooden broom like a weapon.
Her first instinct is to panic, and it's that panic that forces her to move, stumbling out of the way of Higsby's strike with the broom. Higsby's swing is wild and almost pitches him onto the floor, but he plants his feet firmly and whirls on her, lifting the broom over his head.
Fear reaches a fever pitch inside her, and everything goes foggy for a few moments.
When the fog eventually receeds, she's sitting on the floor, trembling violently, hands covering her head. She can hear shouting, and flinches instinctively, before she realises that the shouting isn't directed at her for once.
"-not fakes, we're not fakes, just put the broom down already!"
She knows that voice. Even through the fear, she knows who that is. She doubts she'll ever not recognise his voice.
Mimic looks up and sees Lan standing in front of her, arms spread out like he's protecting her - and maybe he is, because she sees Higsby beyond him, still holding onto that broom like it's a weapon. Anything can be weapon if you're smart enough to figure out how to use it. She just doesn't want that to be used against her.
"Liar!" Higsby snaps, and Mimic flinches again as he steps forward.
Lan stands his ground, though.
"Look, just calm down!" he exclaims. "If I'm a fake, why would I have MegaMan? And Chaud, too - he has ProtoMan and Arcadia, right? Fakes wouldn't have the real things' Navis!"
"They could just be copies!" Higsby looks ready to strike again. "You won't trick me, not today! I'll beat you both until you admit the truth!"
Mimic chokes, and scrambles away until her back hits a wall.
Both Lan and Higsby look over at her - Lan with a wide-eyed, worried expression, and Higsby with a confused one. It takes Lan abandoning trying to convince Higsby that they're not fakes in favour of running over to Mimic to finally get it through Higbsy's thick head, and he lowers the broom, horror dawning in his eyes.
"Oh god," Higsby says, looking like he's about to be sick. Yeah, Mimic gets that feeling a lot.
"Chaud?" Lan's voice is gentle when he kneels in front of her, reaching out hesitantly as if he's not sure if it's okay to touch her. "Are you okay? He didn't- did he hurt you?"
"I didn't," Higsby puts in quickly. "I didn't hit him. Didn't even touch him. He just collapsed, and then you showed up, and . . . Oh, god, I'm so sorry."
He takes a step forward, but stops when Mimic shrinks away.
"Mr. Higsby, I think you should back up a bit," Lan calls over his shoulder. He waits until Higsby does as he says before turning back to Mimic. "Hey, it's okay now, you're okay. Aw, no, don't- don't cry."
She hadn't even realised she was crying. Great. Just add that to list of stupid things she's done in front of Lan - thrown up twice, had a breakdown, had a panic attack, and now she's crying.
She tries rubbing her eyes dry, but the tears don't stop. Lan makes soothing noises, but he's still not touching her, and she can see him giving her quick glances like he's looking for something.
He's- he's looking for signs, she realises. Bruises, maybe, or something along those lines. He suspects something, of course he does, and now he's checking her to make sure she hasn't been hurt since the last time he saw her. Not by Higsby, since he's just confirmed he hadn't touched her, but by Shuseki.
"You're okay," he whispers, more to himself than her. That confirms it, he's definitely checking her for signs of - well - abuse. What else?
Mimic wrings her hands, tries to take a deep breath. It hitches on the way in, but she tries again, and manages it this time. It takes her a few moments to get her breath back, and when she does, the tears finally stop.
Lan apparently takes that as a sign that she's okay, so he helps her stand up. While Mimic's wiping her eyes dry, Higsby tries to come over again, but she catches sight of his broom, still in his hands, and freezes.
"Can you get rid of that?" Lan asks Higsby, with a quick glance at her. "It's- you're scaring him."
"R-right." Higsby chucks the broom to one side, not even checking to see where it lands.
"Lan?"
The new voice is MegaMan's, coming from the PET in Lan's holder. He pulls it out, and Mimic sees the screen - MegaMan's in the network already, so maybe Lan had jacked him in from the outside, and then saw Higsby trying to attack her and had rushed in to help.
Well. She's lucky he did.
Mimic had . . . sort of forgotten that Higsby had been 'warned' about fakes by Gauss. His reaction to Lan breaking into the skyscraper was no less violent, but Chaud hadn't been frozen with terror - and he'd also come in after Lan, just in time to send ProtoMan to save MegaMan. Mimic had done it backwards, in her eagerness to fix the problem.
"We're not getting anywhere," MegaMan says, and Mimic sees that he's not alone.
ProtoMan's next to him, and behind them is MagnetMan, lying on his front. It can't be a comfortable position, considering he's got a giant magnet for a chest, but perched on top of one of the ends of his chest-magnet is Arcadia. The white bird-Navi is holding a Firebomb directly over MagnetMan's head, and he looks oddly cheerful.
"All we got out of him was his name," MegaMan continues, with a glance at MagnetMan. "He says he's called MagnetMan."
"You guys work fast," Lan says, blinking. "I only jacked you in, like, five minutes ago."
"Er." MegaMan exchanges a glance with ProtoMan. "Actually, he was already like this when I got here."
"I also did nothing," ProtoMan says, when Lan and Mimic look at him.
Wait . . . but then that means-
"He's not very good at fighting Navis who can fly," Arcadia chirps happily, swinging his legs.
Well, goddamn. That's nothing short of impressive.
Mimic doesn't trust her voice to work, so she settles for giving Arcadia a little clap. Arcadia looks even more pleased at that.
"Alright, who's your operator?" Lan asks MagnetMan, maybe thinking he'll have better luck than their Navis. "And you'd better answer, unless you want us to sic Arcadia on you again!"
MagnetMan scoffs, but he winces when Arcadia holds his Firebomb closer to his head.
"I'm not talking," MagnetMan snaps, despite the threat.
"See?" MegaMan sighs. "That's all we could get, aside from his name, and ProtoMan had to threaten him with a sword to make him give up that much."
Mimic taps Lan's PET's screen and gets ProtoMan's attention.
[fire creature] she signs, and ProtoMan perks up at that, immediately nodding and turning to Arcadia.
"Arcadia," ProtoMan begins, "could you create one of your friends for me?"
Arcadia blinks at him, incomprehensive for a moment, before understanding dawns on his expression. There's a cheerful grin on his face as he gets rid of his Firebomb, then puts his hands together, Holy Fire glowing in his palms. Arcadia throws his arms out wide, and Holy Fire blasts out with a dull roar. The fire starts to take shape as Arcadia moves his hands like he's molding clay, and within moments they see a long neck, a horned head, and huge bat-like wings spreading and rippling with the shifting white flames.
The Holy Fire dragon rears up and lets out a crackling roar.
MagnetMan screams.
"Top floor!" He's cowering beneath Arcadia, but he's too scared to try and run for it. "I-in the office! There's a secret stairway - you can access it through the network!"
"Thank you," ProtoMan says, completely unfazed by the massive fire-dragon towering over them.
MegaMan, on the other hand, had as little warning as MagnetMan - that is to say, he had no warning at all. He looks absolutely terrified and is trying very unsubtly to hide behind ProtoMan.
Lan is gaping at Arcadia's dragon. He turns his shocked gaze to Mimic.
"He's been hanging around you two way too much," Lan says vehemently. "He was so nice, and now he's caught your sadism!"
Mimic's enjoying this far too much, which is probably a lot better than being scared out of her mind because of Higsby.
She grins at him.
"Yep," Lan says, shivering as he looks at her, "that's definitely the scariest smile I've ever seen. You're scary."
Mimic just cackles silently.
Higsby lets them into his office, while ProtoMan and MegaMan search for the secret stairway in the network. Arcadia stays where he is, sitting on MagnetMan and having his Holy Fire dragon prowl and hiss occasionally, just to keep MagnetMan under control.
Four weeks of literally nothing but messing around in the training program has made Arcadia an absolute master at illusionary fire-creatures. He's taken to Mage Style really well, and it's been so much fun teaching him about the kind of stuff mages in Skyrim can do and seeing how he translates that stuff into his Holy Fire moves. And he's using what he's learnt to terrorise people. Mimic is so proud of him.
It doesn't take them all that long to find the secret stairway. It's MegaMan who stumbles across it in the network, an odd door that he opens out of curiosity - which, in turn, causes a section of the wall in Higsby's office to slide up and reveal the stairway.
They go up immediately. Mimic notices that Lan's staying between her and Higsby, and is torn between gratitude and shame. If she hadn't jumped the gun and tried to fix this on her own - even if Arcadia had managed to beat MagnetMan with no help - she wouldn't have panicked like that, and Lan wouldn't have to do this.
Her shame is put out of her mind when they reach the top of the stairs and come out into a large, empty room. At the other end is Gauss himself, dressed in an oddly-coloured suit, playing a massive piano. No, wait, that's an organ, isn't it? It's got all those pipes making the sounds.
The sound of the organ gradually dies away as Lan shouts a challenge to Gauss.
"Good work on discovering me," the criminal says, turning in his seat.
"You're Gauss Magnets!" Lan gasps beside her.
"You're my investor!" Higsby says at the same time.
Mimic rolls her eyes as they look at each other, startled. Honestly. How did Higsby not recognise the guy as Gauss Magnets the moment they met? And his suit is distinctive enough that he doesn't even need to turn around for a dramatic face-reveal, so Lan should've recognised him too.
Gauss laughs, high-pitched and cheerful as if someone's just told him a really funny joke. You know, instead of catching him red-handed.
"I must say, that white Navi was unexpected," Gauss says, turning to Mimic. "He's with you, isn't he? I didn't know the son of Shuseki Blaze had two NetNavis."
She doesn't, but telling him that Arcadia is actually independent would probably be a bad idea. Better to let Gauss and the organisation he works for, Gospel, think that Arcadia is with her and ProtoMan rather than just hanging around her and ProtoMan. It's easy to track a Navi who's connected to a PET, but an independent Navi can't be tracked so easily, and if Arcadia gets kidnapped or something, they might not be able to find him.
It seems Lan and Higsby realise that too, because they don't correct Gauss either.
"Chaud can have two Navis if he wants," Lan snaps. "What's it to you? And why're you doing all this, anyway? You're making everyone in the city go bankrupt!"
"Wait, he is?" Higsby looks shocked. "But I'm not going bankrupt . . ."
Mimic sighs and covers her eyes with one hand.
"I'm spreading fear and confusion throughout the city," Gauss sneers. Mimic uncovers her eyes and looks at him. She probably shouldn't miss this. "By switching accounts and network routes, I spread the message of Gospel, loud and clear for all to listen to! We're taking the place of that pathetic World Three, and we'll achieve what they could not!"
For all his posturing, he's forgotten one little detail - he hasn't actually publicly announced that Gospel is a thing yet. What an idiot.
"But now that you've caught me, I suppose I should give you some kind of reward," Gauss tells them. "I'll return the city back to normal, and all the accounts will be switched back by tomorrow morning. This is, after all, just a taste of what we can do!"
He spins around in his chair and slams his hands down on the keys, causing a loud, harsh sound to ring out. The noise makes Mimic wince and cover her ears instinctively.
The room starts to rumble as soon as Gauss hits the keys.
"MagnetMan, come back!" Gauss calls cheerfully, as the room begins to split apart.
There's a surprised yelp from her PET, which is in its holder on her hip, but she doesn't need to look at the screen to know that MagnetMan has just vanished from under Arcadia's watchful eye. She hopes he doesn't think he let MagnetMan get away, but considering he was apparently still holding onto him for this long, he shouldn't be too broken up about it.
Gauss's organ starts to morph into that same flying . . . machine thing that it had become in the anime. The room's rumbling too much and it sends her, Lan, and Higsby to their knees, so they can't stop him as he flies off into the open night sky, laughing the whole way.
It's only when he's well gone and the room has stopped rumbling that they can finally stand up properly.
" . . . That was so weird," Lan comments.
Mimic snorts. That's an understatement.
Mimic and Lan jack out their Navis - Arcadia follows ProtoMan, put out, but he looks a little better when ProtoMan praises him for keeping MagnetMan down for so long. They leave Higsby to freak out about his rapidly-draining money (it might sound a bit cruel, but he kinda deserves it for being so utterly oblivious) and make their way out to the front of the skyscraper.
The car that she'd taken to get here is still waiting, the driver staring up into the sky with wide eyes. It's no wonder he looks so surprised, given that he probably just witnessed some guy flying off for no apparent reason, but Mimic really doesn't want to explain what just happened. Mostly because she's not entirely sure herself. Gauss is . . . kind of a weird criminal, to be honest.
She waves a quick goodbye to Lan, but before she can even take two steps towards the car, he puts a hand on her shoulder and stops her.
Mimic resigns herself to her fate and turns to face him.
"I just-" Lan breaks off, looking at her eye. "Oh, wow, your eye's reflecting light. That's cool."
Mimic gives him a flat look.
"Right, sorry, got distracted," Lan laughs sheepishly. He clears his throat, and his expression turns serious. "Have you been okay? Y'know, since . . . since I last saw you."
The answer to that question is 'no', but she can't say that, so she just nods.
"Your dad hasn't-" He hesitates. "He hasn't done anything to you?"
She thinks of ProtoMan, screaming and crying, and Proxy's impassive expression as he rips off her best friend's arm on the orders of Shuseki. No, he hasn't done anything to her. ProtoMan's another story entirely, but she's doing her damn best to make sure Shuseki doesn't have an excuse to set Proxy on him again.
Mimic shakes her head. Lan looks relieved, and a thought, unbidden, flashes in her mind. It's not from Chaud this time, it's all hers.
It's easy to lie when you don't talk.
That's not exactly a pleasant thought. It's true, but still unpleasant.