Author's Notes: Okay, due to it being convenient for me, and that I really want to anyway, I'm
going to release Chapter 2 ahead of schedule. You all can expect Chapter 3 to be released May 19.
Everything up to and including Chapter 4 is completed, with plans for Chapter 5 under way.

I currently have no plans to add Lan and co. to the fic, because I've messed with the 'history
of the universe'. I can't say what entirely, of course. =) That would spoil the suprise.
However, I'm thinking of possibly re-writing it, switching some details around and working
the other characters into this. It'll retain much of the unique-ness and storyline, but it'll
open up some interesting posibilities. It all depends on how far I get...and how often I recieve
motivation. No feedback = few updates.

This chapter's a bit shorter than the first, but please bear with me. This is the smallest of
the chapters, and (I think) is one of the more 'mundane' chapters. But hey! It can only get
better from here. =)

--- The Nightmare Bridge ---

-- Chapter 2 --
-- Through the Doors --

An sudden jolt of pain shot up through Momoko's arm, pushing the inert girl back into
the waking world. Her eyes blurred for an instant as she sat up slowly, looking around. As she
did so, her right arm screamed from beneath her, and she narrowly missed collapsing. In suprise
she lifted up her right arm gently.

"It's been bandaged? From what?" Momoko blinked. "I don't remember cutting
myself...WHAAA?!"

Momoko gasped in suprise, looking around. Everywhere around her, she could see the tips
of a thousand metallic spires, each one illuminated in red, violet, or orange. Even the strange
platform she was on, a good thirty by thirty foot square, was lit up in orange light. "No way!
I'm still...I'm still dreaming?!"

Momoko lurched to her feet to get a better view. Seconds later, her stomach lurched with
her, looking down to the ground that seemed a hundred feet below. It wasn't just a platform she
was on. It was another spire! "How in the world did I get up here?!"

"I brought you here for safety." Forte called, floating down from above and landing
several feet away.

"You...You..." Momoko mumbled, inching away from the desending Outcast. 'My cut! I
remember now! It was him!'

"Yeah, It's me again. Happy to see me?" Forte grumbled, sitting down on the other side
of the pillar.

"Happy? You cut my arm and trapped me on this stupid building. And now you're back
again! Why can't you just leave me alone!?" Momoko yelled at the cloaked Forte, who merely
rolled his eyes.

"Typicaly short-sighted."

"Short-sighted?!"

"There's no safer place on this server than atop a spire. Few rivals can find you, no
viruses can reach you, and the only way you'd fall is if you were too stupid to watch your
step."

"While convieniently keeping me from running off."

"Something like that."

Forte frowned in frustration. 'So much for her being cooperative. What had the old man
said about dealing with others he needed information from? The term...what was it...
interrogation? Yes, that was it! Hold on. Interrogation?! What am I thinking?!'

He winced for a second, before returning to his customary scowl. 'I should have
remembered not to think back to him for help.' He turned away, trying to hide the annoyance
from his voice. 'I guess a simple question will have to do...'

"You're a human, aren't you?" The Outcast spoke quietly.

"Of course I am! Aren't...aren't you?" Momoko frowned.

The Outcast was silent.

"I mean, you look strange, but I've seen wierder at the dances at school...haha...ha..."
Momoko laughed for a second, but it was hollow and soon collapsed in on itself.

"I'm sorry...I should have listened to you." Forte stood up, and turned his head so that
he was staring into Momoko's eyes. "No...I am not a human. I'm a Navi. A computer program."

Those red eyes...no one could fake eyes like that..."You're a program?! And this
place...this is a computer?!" Momoko shrieked. "Then those things that were chasing me were more
programs, not monsters..."

"In a sense, they were both. They were viruses, unthinking programs designed to cause
damage and chaos over the net."

"Wouldn't that make you a virus?" Momoko said, sticking out her tongue.

"Why, you little...I'm nothing like those useless, thrown together pieces of junk! Virii
attack because they have no choice. They don't think anything beyond the borders of thier
programing. I do things because I choose to." Forte spoke with obvious pride.

"So the viruses attacked me because they were too dumb to know anything else...and you
attacked me because you're too dumb to care?"

"Yes! Er...No! Aargh!" Forte's eye twitched in frustration.

"Bastard."

"I didn't bring you up here to be lectured!" Forte spoke, now feeling quite exasperated.
"Could we please move on to more important topics?"

"Like?"

Forte swallowed. "Look. You're stuck, injured, and completely unable to protect
yourself." He began to stutter. "Y-you bleed....and who knows what else being here on the
internet could do to your health. If your body reacts the same here as it does in your world,
your very existence might be sign your death warrant."

"Just by being here I'm killing myself, huh? What do you mean by that?" Momoko asked,
a sick feeling beginning to well up in her gut. She glanced at her injured arm.

"Are you hungry?" asked Forte.

"Well, yeah! I haven't had food since this nightmare started. But what does that have
to do with killing myself?" Sudden comprehension crossed Momoko's eyes.

Forte nodded. "Navis don't eat. We rely on electricity to keep us running. But humans
eat food, and if you don't react to weapons like Users or Navis do, what do you think that
electricity will do to someone like you?"

Momoko couldn't respond. Her stomach growled as she broke eye contact with Forte.

"That's why we should try to find some way of sending you back home. I don't know how
you got here, but together, I'm sure we can find some way to send you back."

Anger and confusion lanced through Momoko's violet eyes. "Work together?!" Momoko
gasped. "I hate you!"

Forte slowly sank to the ground, looking miserable. "I can't undo what I did, and you
know it."

"Would you, If you could?"

"Yes! That's what I'm trying to get through to you! I was a fool to lose control like
that. Perhaps I have been a fool ever since I left my sopping excuse for a master. But I never
would have realized it, if I hadn't've hurt you!"

"You think that makes it right?!"

"Gah, no! Stop twisting my words! I never thought I COULD hurt a human. Spent hours...
long, focused hours... hiding, watching Users and Navis walk around, trying to find a way to
strike out them, at people in the real world. I wanted to take what my master gave me, turn
around, and shove it right back in the face of his whole, stinking race!"

Forte faltered. "I don't understand. You took that hope, that vision...and...somehow,
you...you made it fade away." He stared blankly outward, as if in awe. "It was the blood.
Navi's don't have blood, no mess when they get deleted. It's almost so inconsequential now
that a Navi could get deleted daily and not feel adverse effects, save for losing the data it
had been working on. But blood...it's permanent. It's still here, on my hands...tainted
red with your blood. I finally achieved the impossible... and I hate it!" Forte spat the
last sentence, looking disgusted.

"Please!" Forte pleaded. "I want no more scars to my name. Hate me, despise me, but
please let me help you, for both your sake and mine!"

Silence shrouded the air around the tower.

"You're a nut. But somehow..." Momoko said. "...I believe you."

"Hmm?" Forte blinked, suprise clearly evident in his face.

"Let's work together."

Forte's face lit up. "You'll let me help you?!"

"Yes," she said, getting to her feet. "My name is Momoko."

Forte was up in a flash, his confidence restored along with his height. "My name is
Forte. Otherwise known as the Outcast."

"Outcast, huh? I suppose I shouldn't be suprised..."

'Oh, shut up.' Forte grumbled to himself. "I guess I have some explaining to do..."

"Boy, do you ever."

"Put a lid on the attitude, would ya?" Forte growled. Momoko stuck out her tongue, but
kept silent.

"Alright. Before we start, you've got a lot to learn about the internet and how it
works. Pay attention now, because your very life hinges on you knowing this information..."

* * *

Far above Forte and Momoko, one Navi and User team floated in the air, watching the pair
in curiosity and confusion.

"So that's the legendary Forte. It looks like he has another person with him, too,
though..." Fenrir said in a calm voice. Fenrir was the taller of the two, looking for all the
world like a unpolished crystal sculpture. Even hunched back, his long limbs, huge hands and
oblong head combined to make all that saw him shudder, unnerved by the harsh figure.

"Are you sure? Forte is supposed to be an Outcast." Trevor gave his partner a perplexed
glance. Black haired, with simple black-and-blue clothes, the boy could have blended in
anywhere. He seemed, in fact, totally normal, save for his companion.

"There is definitely another person there. She look like a User, not a Navi." Fenrir
replied, his voice insistent.

"A User? Forte doesn't have a user..." Trevor looked down, straining his eyes to see
for himself. "Forte is infamous for hating humans."

"I could be wrong. But what else could she be?"

"I'm not sure. Considering Forte's background, I'd that he's either found another rogue
Navi, a virus designed to look like a Navi, or he's somehow separated a user from her Navi and
is trapping her here somehow."

"Can Forte do such a thing?"

"Heaven help us if he can," Trevor muttered. "Come on."

"We're just going to leave? After all the time we spent hunting him down?" Fenrir asked
in suprise. "It may be extremely dificult to find him again."

"As much as I hate that fiend, we aren't ready to topple him yet. Navi or User, it
doesn't matter, we can't afford being deleted quite yet. It'd be too much of a setback at this
point. Let's leave the lesser hunters to run into him and slow him down. They won't matter in
the end. We're not going to underestimate him, and we're the ones that are going to take him
down. Come, we have research to do."

The statuesque navi nodded, and prepared for a new server jump. Trevor stared back down
at Forte and his strange new companion. He frowned. For a second, it looked like the girl
had...an bandage on her arm?

'Yeah, right.' "I must've had one too many drinks," Trevor sighed. "Just as I thought
my job couldn't get any more complicated..."

The two glowed for an instant, before vanishing into the air, leaving no sign that they
had ever been there at all.

--- End Chapter 2 ---