"Allen! Allen!" It's time to wake up dear." The young man in question just rolled over in his bed. "Five more minutes mom…" From the computer Shell just tilted his head to the side as if that would help him see who was on the other side of the screen.
"Allen it's 7:30!" The voice called out as someone knocked on his door. "You have school today."
"Mhm~" Allen grumbled as he cracked an eye open, and in turn Shell just raised his hands to his lips and shouted.
"HI~" The knocking stopped for a moment as the door slowly opened.
"Allen is someone in there?"
"Technically…" Allen grumbled as he sat up and took a minute to stretch his arms out.
"Allen, did you sneak one of your friends over so that you could play video games all night?"
"No!" Allen called back as he pulled himself from bed and yawned. "I haven't made any friends in town yet." He grumbled before rolling his shoulders. "We have a new house guest by the way." He yawned again as he made his way towards his computer to check on Shell for a moment as the less than a full day old netnavi was just sitting on the floor with a smile. "Morning Shell."
"Morning sleepyhead." Shell remarked as he took a second to open up his equipment screen and put his helmet back on. "Ready to start your day?"
"I really wish I didn't have to…" Allen muttered as he glanced at the computer window that showed a list of numbers on it. "You really went all out during the obstacle course didn't you says here you ran it~"
"175 times." Shell admitted proudly. "It was really fun."
"Was it now?"
"Yeah!" Shell paused. "Also I ran into a few viruses that were trying to cause trouble for the Mr. Progs here on your server.
"Viruses?" Allen made a face as he frowned. "Are you ok?"
"Mhm." Shell nodded his head as he tapped his holders. "It was a little hard to hit targets that were actually moving, but I took care of them."
"Oh thanks." He muttered before seeming to think. "On that, did they leave anything behind? Sometimes Viruses leave data we can use to create battlechips."
"Sorry, I didn't see any." Shell apologized as Allen just sighed.
"Allen! Get out of bed before I pull you out!" Shell turned towards the door as there was knocking again.
"I'm up, I'm up!" Allen shouted, looking in the same direction. "Sorry Shell. I gotta take care of some stuff real quick alright?"
"Hey, do what you gotta do." Shell stated as Allen got to his feet, gathered up some clothes and made his way towards the restroom.
When he got out of it he uploaded Shell into his PET, saved the progress Shell had made on his computer before shutting it off and headed downstairs to get his day started.
"Allen, who were you talking to earlier?" His mom asked as she set some food on the table.
"Just Shell, our new house mate." His mom raised an eyebrow as a voice came from his PET.
"Hi!" Blinking, the older woman walked over before peeking at the screen to see a familiar figure resting in the computer.
"Hello, you must be…"
"I'm Shell!" The young navi stated as he grinned. "It's nice to meet you grandma." Allen choked on his food as he heard the words.
"G-grandma?" Both mother and son said together in surprise.
"Well, you're technically my dad, and she's your mom, so that technically makes her my grandma." Shell stated simply.
"Well, he's not exactly wrong…" Allen's mother stated as she stared at the Netnami. "Still, this wasn't how I expected to get grandkids, especially so early." She released a light chuckle. "Anyway, it's nice to finally see you Shell." She waved as Shell nodded happily. "Well, is that the right thing to say? We have met before."
"We have?"
"Yes." Mrs. Fairwind stated as she looked at her son who was busy eating breakfast. "Allen showed me several sketches he made when he was trying to get your design together."
"I told you, they weren't sketches, they were blueprints." Allen grumbled as his mom ruffled his short hair.
"Really?" Shell asked. "So how many blueprints did I have?"
"About 30." Mrs. Fairwind stated as she looked at her son. "Allen was trying out a couple different things when he was working on you. One of his trials was giving you a more robotic appearance."
"Really?" Mrs. Fairwind nodded her head. "I could have looked like a robot?"
"Not just that, there was a version of you that would have had a tail." She told him. "He was a bit indecisive in the beginning."
"I could have had a tail!?" Shell looked towards Allen. "Why didn't you keep the idea of me having a tail?"
"I couldn't get it to work ok?" Allen grumbled as he finished his plate and set it in the dishwasher. "Anyway, I need to get to school." Allen stated as he grabbed his PET and hooked it on his belt. "Well, see you later mom."
"Bye honey, have a good first day of school."
Class, I'd like to introduce you to our new student Fairwind Allen.'' Hayashi Kyoko said with a smile as she gestured to the young man standing infront of her class. Allen was, relatively - but not overly tall for his age he dressed himself in a short-sleeve grey shirt and black pants Nothing to out there but he did wear his hoodie around his waist.. "Allen, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself."
"Sure uh… well." Allen began as he seemed to think for a moment. "I'm from Netopia, just moved into town last week, and in my spare time I study Network Navigator Construction and Customization and Cybergear Design." Everything he said more or less went over everyones head, well save the teacher who looked at him curiously.
"Oh, you're studying how to create NetNavis." That got everyone's attention as Allen nodded his head. "That's most impressive. Are you planning on joining SciLab for Network Navigator Design."
"Eheh not really." Allen admitted. "At least not yet anyway, I mean it's an option for sure, but, I really just did it for fun." 'And to create Shell.'
"Wait, we can do that?" A voice called out in the classroom.
"We could have built our Netnavi on our own, instead of sending a design and request over to Sci Labs to build one?" Allen just nodded his head as he saw the class break into whispers.
"You could but it takes a long time to get everything together. I almost gave up a few times myself." Allen admitted as he tapped his PET affectionately. "But after I got it all together I managed to build Shell."
"Shell?"
"My netnavi." Allen stated as he held up his PET and pointed it to the class.
"Hey everyone, it's nice to meet ya!"
"You made that netnavi from scratch?"
"That's pretty cool."
"Can you do mods? Like can you change a Netnavi's color or something?
"What's wrong with my color?"
A Netnavi asked their Operator.
"I was thinking of giving Greedo a new buster design, do you think you could help with that?"
"How much would it cost for you to give my netnavi a long coat?"
"What about different weapons? I always wanted Signus to have a scythe like Eraserman."
The requests just kept coming as Allen tried keeping up with them all.
That was before someone whistled and the classroom went silent. Allen looked at the teacher and found that she was rubbing her ears before turning to one of the students.
"Alright everyone, let's not overwhelm Allen with questions on the first day." A tall blonde stated as Allen gave her a grateful smile. "I apologize for my classmates' eagerness."
"It's fine, it's not everyday you learn that you could create our own Netnavi right, ms…"
"Yai." The girl stated. "Ayanokoji Yai." She bowed in respect. "It's a pleasure."
"Likewise." Allen returned the bow before turning to everyone else. "As for modding your netnavis, I'm going to have to say I can't do that. I'm not that good just yet and if I try altering their code I might cause them to develop a bug and start glitching."
"Ah~"
Ms. Hayashi clapped as she nodded her head. "Anyway, Allen, why don't you take a seat~" She looked around her classroom for a moment. "Next to Mayl. Mayl can you raise your hand please?"
"Hai." Mail did just that as Allen walked over and greeted the red head. "It's nice to meet you Allen."
"Same, I hope we can get along." Mail smiled as Allen took a seat beside her. Plugging his PET in he let Shell upload himself into the School's public servers as class started.
Shell looked around, his gaze drifting about the classroom server as he watched the various Netnavi's and programs wander around. "So this is what a school server looks like." He remarked as he heard someone walk up to him.
"Hi there." Turning Shell saw a pink netnavi walk up to him with what looked like a small program following behind her. "You're… Shell right; Allen's Netnavi?"
"Yeah, and you are?"
"My name is Roll, I'm Mayl's Netnavi." The netnavi introduced herself. "It's nice to meet you Shell."
"It's nice to meet you too." Shell stated as he did a mock bow. " I hope we can become friends."
"Likewise." Roll smiled in his direction as Shell took a moment to crouch down and come face to face with the program to get a better look at it. It kind of looked like a dog.
"So, who's this little guy?"
"This is Rush, he's a companion and support program of mine."
"He's cute." Rush didn't say anything as Shell started to pet him. "Where'd you get him?"
"Actually he was given to Mayl by Lan's dad years ago." Roll stated as Rush ran up to Roll and jumped into her arms. "He's been with us ever since."
"Ah." Shell paused. "Who's Lan?"
"Lan is Mayl's boyfriend, but he's away in Den City for the moment." She stated with a sigh as Rush licked her cheek. "He's taking classes there in order to follow his dream about becoming a scientist at SciLab."
"SciLab… that's the scientific research facility isn't it?"
"That's right." Roll stated before looking ahead of her. "Anyway, since Maiy and Allen are going to be busy for a while, would you like me to show you around?"
"Yes please." Shell stated as he and Roll started walking off, chatting all the while.
Allen glanced at his PET as he saw Shell follow after Roll, as he released a light smile on his face as his so. Seemed Shell had already made a friend. "Good for him." Allen whispered as he turned back ahead, to focus on the lesson before his attention drifted to a book that was on his desk. Network Navigator Operations Tools for Beginners.
"Oh~" Shell made a noise as he looked at Roll. "So you've been with Mayl since she was in Kindergarten? You two go way back."
"That's right." Roll admitted as she thought about her partner. "I've been with Mayl most of her life. We're practically sisters."
"Really, since Allen made me he's practically my dad." He said with a grin as Roll giggled.
"What about you, how long have you been with Allen?"
"About 11 hours." Shell admitted. "He just finished piecing my data together last night, and I've been doing an obstacle course ever since to make sure my data wasn't faulty."
"So you're really just a baby." Roll muttered as Shell grinned.
"Well, technically you're not wrong." Shell paused in thought. "Does that seem a little weird to you? I mean I'm a baby but I look around, what, 16-to-17?"
"Not really." Roll stated as she continued leading Shell throughout the school cyberspace. "When we netnavis are made we typically appear in our early teens to adult years, but technically we'd all been born at that moment."
"So when you were made you already looked like this." Shell asked as he looked Roll over, though his cheeks flushed when his gaze rested a bit too long on her butt. How Roll hadn't caught him staring for a moment was a miracle on his part.
"I've had a few upgrades over the years, but I've kept my general appearance the same." She admitted before setting her hands on her thigh, which software updates had allowed to fill out a bit over the years. "Although I was thinking of asking Mayl to get me a skirt based program to add to my outfit." She muttered.
"Allen might be able to make you something." Shell blurted out as his eyes darted towards that heart shaped ass before going back up. "I mean, he made me from scratch, how hard would it be for him to edit your appearance a bit to give you a skirt?"
"Well, your operator did say that he wasn't good enough to try altering code yet." Roll stated as she recalled as she looked back. "Besides, I don't think Rock would enjoy having another guy looking at my data."
"Rock?"
"My boyfriend." Roll stated as she turned to Shell.
"You have a boyfriend?" Weird, knowing that made Shell feel a bit funny inside. It took a minute for his data to try processing what that feeling was.
'What is this feeling?' He didn't have an answer to that just yet. All he could say was that he went from feeling good, to suddenly… 'bad'. 'I don't like this feeling…' "So, where is your boyfriend?"
"Rock is out of town for a while." Roll sighed. "His operator is taking classes in Den City so he can become a scientist at Sci Labs."
"So Rock had to go with him." Shell felt… lighter knowing that, still. The fact he did felt… strange. 'I'm gonna have to talk to Allen about this later…' He thought as Roll just nodded her head. "Are you lonely without him around?"
"Yeah." Roll admitted as she looked skyward her attention focused on the streams of data that were racing across the sky. "But we talk alot and he can cross the servers to see me whenever, so I'm not that lonely." She turned to Shell and smiled. "In fact he should be in town in a few days."
"Oh~" That weird feeling again… Roll didn't see his frown as she heard someone call out to her and turned her head.
"Roll." The Netnavi was pretty big, but Shell thought he walked kind of like an ape of sorts.
"Hey Guts." She stated as the giant netnavi stopped before her. "What's up?"
"Dex has a message for Mayl." He stated. "He wants to know how she's doing since Lan went away." Roll released a smile as Rush barked at the ape like navi.
"Mayl's fine, she's a bit lonely without him, but she's holding it together since they get to talk at least once a week."
"That's good news." Guts stated as he turned to Shell who gave him a wave. "Who is this?"
"This is Shell, he's Allen's Netnavi partner." Roll admitted. "Shell, this is Gutsman, he's a good friend of mine."
"Nice to meet you." Shell felt that strange feeling disappear as he looked up at Gutsman. "You're really big, so you're really strong right." Gutsman rubbed the back of his head.
"Yeah, Gutsman very strong. Aim to be the strongest Nertnavi after all."
"Strongest huh? Then do you think you could teach me a few things?" Shell asked hopefully. "I'm new to… well… everything, especially battling, I've only dealt with a few viruses since my short lifespan."
"Don't worry." Gutsman hit his chest. "Gutsman have no problem showing you ropes." He stated as he turned to Roll. "Oh yes, almost forget; Dex also want to know if Mayl want to hang out today. Dex going to arcade for Netbattle practice. "
"I'll ask her after class, ok." Roll got a nod as Gutsman turn back to Shell and his eyes smiled, turning into a pair of upside down u's.
"You come to, good place to see how real battle goes."
"I'll do that." Shell grinned as Gutsman seemed to wave and turn around.
"See then, need to see if Glide and Yai interested in going."
"Don't let me stop you." Roll stated as she watched Gutsman wander off as she smiled. "Anyway that's Gutsman, I hope you two can get along."
"Me too." Shell admitted. "Though not to be rude, but he does talk kind of funny."
"Yeah~ well~ when he was created years ago, Dex had him be really strong but not that smart." She admitted with a sigh as she watched him wander off. "Only recently has he been getting upgrades to boost his mental parameters."
"Really?" Shell asked as Roll nodded. "Well's that's good, that means he's not just all brawn right?"
"Exactly." Roll admitted as Shell looked over in Gutsman's direction. "I wonder if he'll fight me."
"I wouldn't recommend it." Roll stated with a smile. "Guts routinely ranks somewhere in tournaments. He might be a bit out of your league."
"Well, we'll never know unless we try, right?" Shell asked as he reached over and patted Rush's head.
Later
Class itself was rather boring. Didn't matter which school he went to, Allen found class to be incredibly dull. He paid as much attention as he could, but the book in his hand was more interesting than the class he was presented with.
Releasing a muted sigh, Allen closed his book and sent a message to Shell, telling him that he needed to return to the PET soon so he could unplug it and head to his next class. Sure he could always just unplug it anyway and replug it later in the next classroom, but he didn't want to leave Shell in the dark for a while wondering exactly what just happened.
"I have returned!" Shell shouted as he returned to the PET and was subsuquently jacked out of the Net. "What I miss?"
"A typical classroom experience." Allen stated as he got up and gathered his things before heading out the classroom. "Everything was boring."
"Well I had a great time!" Shell stated. "I met a girl, we went around the school servers - I met a lot of navis and I got us an invite to go the arcade." Allen stared in surprise, before chuckling.
"Well you've certainly been busy." "Who invited you to the arcade?"
"Gutsman." Allen seemed to think for a moment as he heard the name.
"Gutsman… Gutsman. He's Dex Oyama's netnavi."
"You know him?"
"Only by reputation." Allen stated. "He partakes in a lot of tournaments, tends to rank pretty high if these two Netnavi's by the name of Blues and Rock don't get involved." Shell seemed to fall silent as he frowned. "Shell?" Allen noticed the shift from the normally -easily excited netnavi. "Are you ok?"
"I don't know…" Shell admitted as he looked up at his partner in confusion. "My… programming feels funny. Rock… whenever I hear that name I feel… strange."
"Strange how?"
"Strange like…" Allen waited but he kept walking towards his next class. "Bad." He muttered before scratching his head. "I don't really know what I'm feeling other than… 'bad' but I don't know why."
"What made you start feeling like this?" Shell seemed to think for a moment.
"After Roll said he was her boyfriend." Allen stopped walking as he stared at his PET in surprise.
"Excuse me?"
"The girl I met, Roll, she said Rock was her boyfriend, and that was when the bad feeling started." The netnavi muttered as he looked at his operator again. "I just don't know why, I was really happy before."
"Shell… I think you're… jealous."
"Jealous?" Shell muttered.
"What is jealous?"
"Jealousy is a… how to put it?" He muttered. "It's a feeling you get when you...hm~" Allen seemed to think as he stood against a locker. "It's a really complicated feeling, but it's…" He trailed off again. "Like you said, it's a bad feeling. I'm sorry that's all I can really say."
"Jealous." Shell muttered as Allen nodded his head. "I'm… jealous… why?"
Allen released a weak smile. "It's really hard to explain." He paused. "Well, it really isn't, I mean I have an idea of why your jealous, but it's a bit early to say for sure." Allen stated. "You've only been online for a few hours, your Emotion Progit is likely still calibrating so you can properly process feelings."
"My Emotion Progit?"
"It's your emotional emulation software, it lets a netnavi simulate human feelings without breaking down and self-deleting themselves."
"This feeling…" Shell put a hand on his chest. "I could… self-delete because of it?"
"If you didn't have the Progit you would. Dr. Cossack's notes say that Netnavis normally can't process feelings… when you try breaking it down it starts producing an Error and causes a bug in your software. That's what causes you to delete." Allen stated. "The Emotion Progit helps process those feelings into a code that you allows them to understand them without producing the error." Allen stated. "When your Emotion Progit fully processes all your different feelings, you should be able to have a better understanding of what your going through."
"Ok." Shell muttered in this soft tone. "You'll… you'll help me through this right?" Shell sounded like an insecure child at this point. "You'll try and help explain things, right?"
"Yeah." Allen stated as he released a more warm smile. "I'll try helping anyway I can." Shell released a smile of his own. "Just a heads up though, emotions are… complicated. I know that from experience."
"Right." The bell rang and Allen looked up. "Uh oh… that's bad isn't it?"
"Yes."
Notes
Alright just to put this out there before anyone brings this up, yes I am basically moving Megaman/Rock out of the story without deleting him. Reason for this is actually really simple. Given this takes place after both Battle Network 6 and the manga, Rock is basically to overpowered for anything I could potentially throw at Shell and the cast. Hell, in the Manga's epilogue he still retains Beast Out and can partially manifest it, and he wears weights that when taken off break the freaking level Tiers.
Because of this simple fact alone, he and Blues ares going to be out of focus for most of the story, they'll be doing their thing while Shell and the Cast do they're thing.
Second. Concerning Shell andf Roll; This is not an OCxRoll based fic. I could see where that ship goes, but at the moment its not really goingn to go anywhere. At least not until Shell fully wraps his head around what 'good' and 'bad' feelings are.
