"Nomde-sama, puku!" a very annoying voice cried behind the black navi. Nomde's eyes narrowed in irritation as he turned to face the smaller navi.
"What do you want?" Nomde snapped. "If you haven't noticed, we have a major problem!"
"I know, puku!" Bubbleman wailed. "The Net Saviors and some stranger are on their way here with Netto's cousin and a pack of wolves. The girl said something about a weapon that could destroy you!"
"Really?" Nomde hissed. That was a bit of interesting information. Just what kind of weapon did that Seer had that she thought she could use against him? At least he knew where Netto would most likely be heading. That made things a bit difficult for Nomde, though. He had to get Netto back before the dimensional area began to fade. He had a few hours of leeway before that would happen, and by that time he planned to have Netto back in his power. So his best choice for the time being was to find the Seer and watch her from a distance, and wait for Netto to go to her. Then he'd grab Netto before they could do anything.
Whether or not that mercenary he hired did her job Nomde couldn't worry about now. Without Netto all of his plans would fall apart. Silently he cursed the incompetent human who had messed up the unsealing spell. If he had done it correctly Nomde wouldn't have been having this current problem. All the more reason for him to wipe out the human race once he got Netto back.
"Stay here, Bubbleman. If those other incompetent navis come back, tell them that I wish to speak with them when I get back. I shall be back soon."
"Yes, Nomde-sama, puku."
Rockman was staring at Netto is disbelief. So was Neko, and S-chan was curled up in the hacker's arms, shaking like an aspen leaf. Netto had just finished telling them what Nomde had told him, that his father, Yuuichiro, was dead.
"Netto-kun, I can't believe that," Rockman said, taking a deep breath to steady himself. "Nomde had to be making it up, just to torment you."
"Right," Neko agreed, nodding. "And I know that Kichi would have found a way to let us know if that had really happened. You know she would."
Netto nodded, very slightly. He still wasn't sure, though. Granted, Nomde had said himself that he drew his power from fear and hate, but there was something about it that he couldn't shake off easily. Rockman sensed his brother's doubt.
"We'll find Kichi, Netto-kun. She'll know where Papa is, and we can get in touch with him. Then we can deal with Nomde, okay?"
"Okay," Netto agreed. "But how are we going to find Kichi? I know she'll have gone after Nomde to try and save me, and from the looks of things, you didn't run into her down here."
"Well, we'll go above and look for her, then. But lets head back down the tunnel a bit, first. The demon-navi is probably looking for you close to his lair. So it'll be crawling with viruses. Should be a bit better further out, and we can start our search there," Neko said. "Since my phone is dead, we'll just have to rely on S-chan's nose."
Both Netto and Rockman nodded. They both wanted to know the truth, but being reckless wouldn't get them the answer they wanted any faster. And Netto didn't want to end up back in Nomde's clutches again.
Nomde lurked in the shadows, going from rooftop to rooftop, following the odd little group down on the streets below as they made their way closer to the radio station. They were still several blocks away from his lair, and with all of the virus from the net swarming around, their speed was minimal at best. He had to admit, rather grudgingly, that they were fighting quite well, given the sheer number of viruses they were up against. That sniper Navi was doing quite well, and that rather common navi wasn't to bad of a shot either, even using just a default weapon. The humans were being quite inventive, not surprising, considering two of them were Net Saviors. The third human, whom Nomde didn't know, was fighting just as hard, though she was sticking to the smaller viruses. The wolves were fighting like, well, wolves. The Pack had always been something to be wary of, and even with reduced numbers were something to be feared.
And then there was the Seer. That troublesome, irritating Seer. She should have died in his last attack, but know, somehow she had managed to escape. Even from where he was Nomde could see the aura of anger around her. It clung to her like static electricity, and it made her seem mucher bigger and fiercer than Nomde had remembered from their last encounter. It even made him feel a bit of fear of his own. Humans, he knew, were often controlled by their emotions, and those emotions could either make a human very weak, or very dangerous. And in this case, it had made the Seer very dangerous indeed.
Such emotions had proved to be his downfall in the distant past. It was the emotions of a human girl, one called Aleka, that had been the cause of him being sealed away. She had cast her own life to the winds because she had loved every being without hesitation. So much so that she had offered her own life to save the lives of even those who had hated her with everything they had. Such a powerful emotion, love. Powerful enough to seal Nomde up for several centuries. That seal had been so powerful that Nomde had thought that he would never find a way out.
And then an amzing stroke of luck had occured. The kind of thing that he had only dreamed about, but had never expected to happen. The human responsible for sealing him away had been reborn into the body of a little boy. It was as if the Spirits were taunting him, daring him to just try and escape. A pity to them that he was that daring. There was a way for him to escape and destroy the human race, and he was going to take it.
But of course, the Spirits had thrown a boulder in his past. The wolf that had helped bring about his downfall had been born as well, and while it wasn't the power that had sealed him, the child who inherited that spirit could in fact sense Nomde, and quite possibly prevent Nomde from reaching the other child. The Spirits had given him an opportunity to escape, and then tossed the very thing that could prevent it from happening into the mix as well. Something that had irritated Nomde to no end.
He had waited, though, and watched the two children grow. Despite being sealed in the mountains, his eyes reached very far, far enough that he could watch them grow. And for a very long time it had looked as if the two boys would never meet each other, and that would mean that Nomde could try and move in on the brat that would once again give him the power to destroy everything and reforge it into his image. He would have to find a body to take over first, and then go after the boy. Then he would preform the ritual that would give him the power he needed, and then the world would be his to command.
But of course, fate had other plans. The two had met, and though they had started off as enemies, had become friends as they had faught off different terrorist groups. Nomde hated those groups with a passion now, since they were pretty much the reason the two boys had grown closer together. But Nomde was still certain that he could win, and so he had decided to go ahead with his plans. And when that poacher had made the mistake of coming into the cave where Nomde was trapped, well, Nomde couldn't have asked for a better opportunity to present itself. He had placed some of his energy into the poacher to take over his mind, and had sent the human after Netto.
He had succeeded, and had performed the ritual as Nomde had commanded, except for one small error. That error had made it so that Nomde had been released, as he had wanted, but without the power he needed. And now he needed to leach the power out of Netto so that he could complete his revenge against the earth in general, and the humans specifically. That was why Nomde had placed that mass of dark energy inside of Netto, to leech away to power Nomde needed, and eventually kill Netto. Once Nomde had leeched away all of the power out of Netto, the demon navi wouldn't have to worry about his dark dimensional area going down at all. Once it had covered all of the world, of course. The he could destroy the humans at his leisure.
But now Netto had escaped, and Nomde was stalking the group of humans that he was most likely to come to. And one of those humans was dangerously close to going beserk. Add two navis, and two Net Saviors to the mix, one of which was also one of his ancient enemies, and Nomde had a rather explosive situation growing beneath him. Perhaps it would be better for him to take care of this situation before it got out of hand. Or more specifically, take care of the Seer before ishe/i got out of hand. He'd worry about the others afterwards.
The demon navi moved silently, sliding down the wall of a small building down into a dark alley a little ways ahead of the group. The number of viruses was beginning to thin down, enough that the group pushed through a bit more quickly, and right into Nomde's range. Growling with rage of his own, Nomde launched himself out of the alley, claws bared, headed straight for the group...
