PART IX: THE VILLAGE OF THE METOOLS

Netto, Enzan, Laika, Yaito, and Meiru were now all at home, communicating their efforts to each other through use of a forum. In the meantime, Rockman, Searchman, Blues, Glyde, and Roll proceeded to the Metool Village. However, the journey was not to be a quiet one, for suddenly Blues felt compelled to say something to Slur.

"So, Slur…" Blues whispered as he leaned toward her, "what exactly DID you do with those sailors?"

"That is a long story that involves too much bad accordian music, rubber ducklings, inflatable chairs, and cheap alcohol," Slur replied, blushing and closing her eyes.

"And so…if, say, I happened to get a job as a sailor…what are the chances of you and me…" Blues tried to flirt, but became quiet as soon as he started to notice Slur's wires entangling his body.

"That would not do justice to the fangirls who love to draw you and Enzan naked," Roll countered, with a devilish grin, after which it was Blues' turn to blush. "Come to think of it…I rather like those pictures."

"We've been walking for hours," Rockman complained. "Can't we just connect there if we know where it is already?"

"The Metools are an unusually mobile species of virus," Glyde replied while pointing upward in an intellectual fashion for who knows whatever reason. "They move from place to place, following other virii and wrecking havoc. Therefore, it's likely that the five Adver Metools are even scattered throughout the outskirts of the city. This means that connecting directly would cost us any opportunity we would have to search for them in the in-between areas, where they could possibly hang out."

"In so many words, yes," Searchman continued as Rockman's brain fizzled out from the sheer amount of info it had just been asked to process.

"Yeah!" Roll shouted gleefully. "Cheer up, Rockman! Don't worry, be happy! Here, this will help you!" She "glomped" Rockman tightly around his shoulders and squeezed him so that he almost turned purple.

"If you must do that," Blues provided some color commentary on the event, "you should get a private space in a chatroom for it instead of doing it here in the open. Anyway, it seems we've arrived."

"How do you know that?" Slur asked, tilting her head.

Blues pointed at a sign that read, "YOU HAVE REACHED THE VILLAGE OF THE METOOLS. POPULATION: TOO MANY."

Slur slapped her forehead, then said, "I have already spent far too much time with the likes of you all if I did not even notice that. I shudder to think I am the smart one here."

The group continued into the Village of the Metools, a large village of cubical dwellings nestled very close to each other. It seemed as if each of them was large enough for a Navi of average height to walk into, and in front of each was a small mailbox, each and every one reading, "Welcome to Metto's House."

"If every one of them is named Metto," Blues observed with a grin that said he knew everything in the world, "then finding those five Adver Mets should be no problem. We just need to ask these villagers where to find them. They probably stick out like sore thumbs! HEY! METTO!"

"Metto! Metto metto!" a mungogagillion squeaky voices responded. Soon thereafter, an ungodly amount of Metools stampeded toward them. Rockman wanted badly to run away, and Blues almost wet himself. Roll continued to maintain a death grip on Rockman. Searchman prepared to shoot any Metool that would dare to bonk him with a pickaxe. Slur didn't really care.

"Metto! You dare call all of us here?" one Metool asked.

"You! The one who spoke!" replied Roll. "You must be the leader!"

"Metto! We only underlings of Great Leader Mettometto!" cried another Metool, after which every other Met bowed in reverence. "All our base are belong to him!"

"Then take us to your leaders!" Rockman shouted, dramatically citing a gratuitously overused science fiction quote.

"Metto! We only underlings of Great Leader Mettometto! All our base are belong to him!" the same Metool replied.

"You already said that!" Rockman replied, rather disturbed. "Now tell us where to find Happy, Slappy, Hungry, Grumpy, and Dopey."

The Metool repeated his quote a third annoying time. "No wonder you guys are so expendable, because you're so STUPID!" Rockman looked as though he would go ballistic when Blues held him back.

"You're sort of slow, aren't you?" he said with a raised eyebrow. "Ordinary Metools are so numerous that they are programmed as townsfolk in a role-playing game. No matter how many times you talk to them in advanced code, each of them can only say one line. Wily did this way back when so that it would be easier to program them as a whole. They don't understand advanced language, so we will have to speak to them in BASIC. In other words, caveman talk."

"And you expected Rockman to understand all of that?" Searchman asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Very well…let me try!" shouted Roll gleefully as she skipped toward the Metools, who tilted their heads, not sure what to make of her feminine cuteness. "Hello all you cuties. Me name Roll. We want go to leader. Mmmmmm."

"Mmmmmm!" replied the Metools in unison. "We understand! You see leaders later…you look like you have long trip! We fix you up now!"

"Thank you!" Roll squealed while jumping up and down gleefully, taking immense delight in seeing the Metools do the same. She looked back and winked at Rockman, who smiled back with a huge sweat drop on his forehead, thinking, "If she has to be…she can be even more stupid than Netto."

The Metools lifted the group onto the tops of their heads and carried them into an enormous white building labeled "MET-HOSPITAL." They were seated in a relatively boring room with nothing posted on the walls except for a single sign that read, "Cheap medications! Low prices, high quality, and NOT the other way around! Buy new pills at the best prices from our Great Leader Adver Man!"

Slur froze in her tracks. "Do you all realize what that means?"

"That we don't have to rely on the government for Medicare?" Rockman asked, a jovial smile adorning his face.

"That too. But it also means since the Adver Mets Happy, Slappy, Hungry, Grumpy, and Dopey have been appointed as leaders, they have likely spread propaganda like this throughout the village. It's therefore likely that all Metools here are now loyal to Adver Man. So we may not just have to fight the leaders themselves…"

Everyone listening suddenly became serious as they realized what she was getting at.

"…we may have to fight the entire Metool network."

The five of them sat grimly, awaiting the horrible decisive battle to come. Who knew what madness and annoying cuteness the Metools were capable of?