Chapter 5: Venture to the Dark Net
Outside at eBay, Lee finally buys the rail gun shooter and was reunited with Jin, Daigo and Roberto.
"Where's Kou?"
"When we came back to eBay to get this rail gun shooter, Kou had disappeared immediately afterward. But not to worry, I stick him with a tracking device and I had a radar to see where he is going." Lee said as he gave Jin a radar.
"You mean that he went off somewhere..." Daigo wondered as Lee finally smirks after seeing through Kou's appearance.
"I'd be honest that this taekwondo wannabe, he's no ordinary video game character. He must be a real person under this certain person's avatar. As for us, we're actually real characters from a video game who travels to find this joystick."
"I just can't understand, you mean Kou is not a video game character like us. What's that supposed to mean?" Roberto said in confusion which Lee responds to his words.
"I feel that he is a real person. When he and I we masquerade ourselves to get real money for the videos, I knew this guy is up to something. You have to find what Kou's real identity is. It's just like how I masquerade myself as Violet."
"You can take this PDA, Lee. This will call Mr. Manson if things gets more trouble at this place."
"Thanks... I'll get back to the Game World Station and to fix this Time Crisis game in no time." Lee said after Jin gave him the PDA. "I'm not gonna say to Lars if he knew you and the schoolers would venture through the Internet even though you heard the Surge's warning about going to the internet is dangerous."
As Lee leaves with the rail gun shooter, Jin decided to find Kou along with Daigo and Roberto by asking the road ad leads to the Dark Net as Jin looked at the radar given to him by Lee. Both knew it was the place where hackers are able to set up the viruses throughout the net.
"This place looks gloomy, I don't like it here." Roberto said while showing his dislike of gloomy things and Daigo noticed it is similar to the slums in the back street.
"Why would Kou be doing in this dark place?"
"As Lee says, Kou has a mission to take down the culprit behind the shutdown of the arcade games. No wonder why he went to the Dark Net. This is the place where the hackers can hack any form of computer virus." Jin said in a deep tone until he stopped and the trio sees Kou had been searching for the culprit.
"You saw him, Jin?" Daigo asked which he nods and he sees him trying to entrap the culprit behind the shutdown of the game as the long haired man who gets the virus named Arthur from Double Dan.
"Not so fast, Skip Joystick, your IP address has found by me. I'm from the cybercrime division. You're under arrest!"
"Shit! Not you again...!"
The man reveals himself as Skip Joystick under the alias of Snow Skipper and gets Arthur and escape as Kou attempts to chase him.
"A cybercrime division? He must be a cop in real life." Roberto said surprisingly as Jin realizes that Kou is actually a real person using a character avatar.
"Lee was right about Kou. He's a real person we had met before. We have to go after him..."
At the Fighting Force game, Hawk remembers about how his comrades have retired from fighting criminal organizations as he is the only active member who can fight. A woman shows up to see him and he gave him a card which comes from Lee and Hawk recognizes who she is.
"It's you, Mace Daniels... Long time no see..."
"Seems like the silver guy just gave me this card. It appears that this internet place is about to be threaten soon."
Kou continues to chase Skip who tried to attack him with snow storm projectiles which he dodges the attack by using back flips. Without warning, Skip was hit on his face with a soccer ball, knocking him down. He looked to see Roberto was the one who executed his Long Shoot as both Jin and Daigo are with him.
"You three...? How did you know I was here?"
"Don't act something cool, Kou. If it wasn't for my adoptive uncle Lee, we couldn't find you elsewhere." Jin said while shrugging over his actions and Kou noticed a tracking device as Skip gets up and became mad over their presence.
"You game characters... you have no shame for hitting on me. But Arthur is gonna put this entire web into misery on my control, hahaha..."
Skip eventually uses a snow projectile to hit on them only for Daigo to block using his True Massive Back Burning Vigor to deflect the projectiles causing his escape.
"Who's Arthur...?"
"He is an insecurity virus that could slow down any online games like the Fighting Force. Skip had took it because that was his plan to shutdown the game."
"He seems hostile towards us for no good reason. Why would he tried to eliminate everything?" Jin wondered about his dislike of them which Kou finally reveals himself to them as the real man on the internet.
"I guess it's about time to show off my dukes. I knew you three are created by both Namco Bandai and Capcom. My real name is David Ledger, I'm a professional cop from the cybercrime division here in New York City and I came here to apprehend Skip Joystick who is a disgruntled video game designer who was freed in prison by bail."
"So the silver guy was right about Kou. He is for real..." Roberto said when Kou introduced to them in his real identity.
"I'd be honest, I respect Harada-san for his professional works in the Tekken games especially for Ono-san. They are the best people who develop these fighting games to have fun by the e-gamers and any other video game enthusiasts to play." Kou said while showing he is a big fan of the producers behind the respective games and Jin knows about the producer of their game.
"So you knew about Katsuhiro Harada... I remember his full name and I clearly forgot in how I met this guy in person." Jin said knowingly about the man who's responsible for their game as Daigo remembers about the person he had mentioned as well.
"Seems like the other guy he meant was Yoshinori Ono. He's also a producer from Ryu's game. All I know is someone had already replaced him with another director from the recent Street Fighter V game."
"It's Nakayama-san. I see then..." Kou said knowing of who they were and decided to stop Skip. "We have to get back to the Fighting Force game and fast. Skip had decided to shut this game by slowing down. Let's go..."
Back at the Fighting Force game, Kou finally reveals the true motives about Skip and why he was released in prison by bail.
"Skip Joystick was professional video game designer who was rejected by the video game industry and his true motives is to kidnap most video game designers and trapping them in his own game he created. If it wasn't for those three women who worked in the spy organization, his plans were thwarted."
"So the game he made looks just like in Mario, right." Roberto said recognizing the retro games.
"It is... he was released in bail because his mother payed him for his innocence but she falls from his lies and deception and not knowing about his cybercrime." Kou said and Daigo realizes what it is.
"I think that is the reason why the House of the Dead 4 game was shut down. He actually set up the virus to make the entire game corrupted and that would lead their game to be unplugged."
"That would be his motive all along. We need to track him down otherwise he would set up the computer virus."
The group then see Skip had released Arthur on the sewer only to be subdued by Kou. Jin then tries to get Arthur but fails as it cause to scan one of the players of the game and it transmits it throughout the game and cause havoc.
"Hah, you can't stop it this time. Cause this place is about to go reboot."
Skip then uses the mist to blind everyone to escape as he flies into a graphical cloud. Everyone tries to escape from being reboot and noticing Hawk was there to assist the players to escape.
The group was disappointed when Skip had escaped and Hawk reunites with them.
"What was that thing?"
"That was the insecurity virus... and that thing is slowing down the game you came." Kou said and finally reveals it to Hawk.
"So that's what the silver guy is trying to warn me when Mace came to see me."
"Hawk... I knew you would be here."
Mace arrives to see them and to see the group for saving everyone from getting rebooted.
"Who is she...?"
"She's my former comrade, Mace Daniels. She's a fighter like me. Despite this game we came in has already been defunct, it was still alive when it turned into an online game. All characters from the defunct game will be added up as a guest."
"We have to neutralize Skip or he will make a havoc all over the internet."
"Who's Skip? I remember the time I saw his name being Snow Skipper." Mace said telling Kou about Skip's avatar name.
"I decided to help you to find that Skipper that Mace is talking about. I want to face him in a real fight." Hawk said and decided to join with Jin, Daigo, Roberto and Kou.
"To be honest, he's just a young kid."
"Mace, just informed both Smasher and Alana... I know this kid's threat won't stop at nothing but to ruin the entire internet filled with viruses. I'm gonna help these boys in stopping that kid."
"Just like old times, Hawk... All right, I'll inform both of them right away since they are also retired from fighting like mine." Mace said as she goes off to find them both and Hawk joins with the group to pursue Skip.
As they leave the game, Arthur remains on a wreckage and scans all of the enemies they have been defeated which are 100% and they have unleashed all over the internet in the form of the black men army.
Trivia:
*Lee abruptly learns about Kou's real identity in the video game which is similar to the manga and anime series ./hack.
*Mace Daniels from the first Fighting Force makes her first appearance in the chapter as she helps Hawk to rescue the players from getting rebooted and she is the one who gave a card to Hawk which is from Lee's
*Jin references his character appearance in Project X Zone 2 where he knew the Director and Producer of their game, Katsuhiro Harada.
*Kou's real identity also references the pseudonym names of their voice actors as Kou's English voice actor, Steven Jay Blum whose pseudonym name being credited as David Lucas.
*Skip Joystick from Totally Spies is revealed to be responsible for the shutdown of the arcade games following his release from prison and acted similarly to Ralph in the film, Ralph Breaks the Internet where he unleashes Arthur into the Slaughter Race game.
*Skip's villain outfit is the same weather costume he had used in the episode Video-no but as a 3D model like in the Unreal Engine.
*Mace's casual outfit bore a resemblance to the primary outfit worn by Jenny Burtory in Bloody Roar 2.