Woohoo! New chapter! I just couldn't seem to get this thing right until recently, and if it doesn't work with me, I'm pretty sure it won't work with all my loving reviewers. NOW TO ANSWER THE REVIEWS!
Dragon Man 180: Yeah. I must say that yelling "Zombie!" whenever something comes back to live makes me laugh as well.
L.C. Techno: Good! If you can't stop laughing, then I've done my job well. As for the revival… I'm not going to say anything.
The Chibi Freya: Thanks for sharing the joy with your friends! It's nice to be loved!
All the rest, because I'm tired and can't thank you properly for your support: Umm… THANK-YOU!
!Warning! This chapter is EXTERMELY slow, similar to ProtoMan's thinking chapter but longer. Also contains spoilers about Freya, but I seriously doubt any of you care since most of you have already read/watched the series. If you haven't… Well… I don't know, close your mind, or something like that.
IIIIIIIIII
ProtoMan felt a giant sweat drop forming on the back of his helmet. "A mother? Hmm… How the heck do I explain a mother…?"
The girl before him tilted her head. "Chii?"
"Okay!" ProtoMan snapped his fingers. "A mother is a female who gives birth to a child. This usually happens after the female marries a male and certain requirements are met."
"Requirements?" She asked, not understanding the word.
Unfortunately for ProtoMan, he thought she wanted to know what the requirements actually were. "Ummm… Well… The mother and the father spend a night together ha-" Suddenly, there was a loud noise as a metal object connected with ProtoMan's helmet. "OW! What the heck was that for!"
Dr. Light, frying pan in hand, was glaring at his creation. "Have you no manners? It's impolite to talk about that stuff right before dinner! Besides, we have company and it's not like MegaMan and Chii are going to go that far anyway."
"I still don't see why you had to hit me." ProtoMan rubbed the back of his helmet before returning his attention to Chii. "Well, I can't tell you right now. Ask MegaMan after dinner. He'll be a little embarrassed, but he might tell you. Anyway, I'm going to go and change into civilian clothes."
"Okay ProtoMan." The Persocom girl nodded to ProtoMan as he walked off, leaving just as Minoru and Yuzuki entered with Roll. Turning around to greet them, she bowed. "Good morning Minoru. Good morning Yuzuki."
"Ah-ah! Remember Chii, 'good morning' is for just after the sun has risen, while 'good evening' is for when it's starting to set." MegaMan, now in his 'Clive' guise, walked into the room and stopped next to the white haired Persocom. Bass, who had also been changing, took a seat away from the main group. "Hey guys. How are you doing?"
"Hello Clive. We were doing fine until the strange occurrences earlier." Minoru smiled as they sat in the nearby couches.
"Ah yes. We think we know what caused the disturbance." Dr. Light, out of his lab coat for once, was dressed in a rather stylish suit. "It appears that Chii has several defensive programs installed in her, and that something triggered it. Whatever happened caused some damage and knocked Clive out cold."
"I see… Perhaps her previous owner feared for her safety and installed the program, but the question is why. Ah, thank-you Roll." Minoru nodded gratefully as the girl delivered a glass of water to him. "If we could only find out who made her, we could question them directly."
ProtoMan, now re-entering the room in his 'Blues' outfit, took this time to speak. "We have already searched the internet for anyone who might have known her before now, but no one has made a reply to it other than the normal garbage about buying her off of us. Got some pretty decent amounts too…"
Clive grimaced. "Not that it really matters. There's no way I'd sell off Chii for a couple thousand dollars."
"Actually, one bid was just under a hundred million."
"Oh. We're still not going to sell her, so get those thoughts out of your head Blues. Anyway, the only real clue we have is that picture of Chii."
Yuzuki nodded. "I assume that you still have it?"
"Yeah, it's in my room. I'll go grab it." Clive jogged out of the room, only to return with the previously mentioned picture. "It's got a few creases from when I folded it up, but other than that it's still intact. I never got a chance to ask Chii or anyone else about it because of the emergencies of late."
Minoru nodded in understanding. "Well, now that we have the time we should ask her. Chii, is the picture Clive is holding a picture of you?"
Clive held out the picture so Chii could see it. After looking at it for a second, she shook her head.
"Well, do you know who it is?"
"Chii… Chii thinks its Freya…"
"Freya?" Minoru raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Who's Freya?"
Bass, who had been silent for a long time, answered. "When Dr. Light finally got through to her systems, he discovered several files that most likely held personality files. One of them was labeled Freya, so we just assumed that it was another personality."
"Oh. I see. So Freya might have been a previous personality, Mr…"
"John Forte, but people usually call me Forte."
"Nice to meet you Forte. Still, if Freya was only a previous personality, then why is it still inside Chii? Normally, even with Custom Persocoms, the previous personalities are erased completely. A Persocom is only supposed to support one personality at a time to avoid having problems. Chii seems to be functioning normally however…"
It was then that the scent of dinner wafted into the room. Dr. Light smiled brightly, knowing that the food was almost done. "Well, the foods almost ready. I think we need to put all these matters aside and just enjoy ourselves for a while."
Clive, Blues and Forte all cheered in agreement and made a dash for the kitchen, leaving those few people who didn't have the capabilities of an android in the dust.
IIIIIIIIII
Freya slowly sifted through Dr. Light's databanks, searching through every project that the old man had worked on since he started keeping records. When she had first entered the system, she left a piece of herself to find out what the good doctor was doing. She had found several interesting projects concerning MegaMan's next upgrade…
"Full emotion capability..." She smiled softly. "I guess I was wrong. Perhaps this can work out after all…"
Setting that information aside for now, she continued her search. Dozens of files pertaining to the various robots MegaMan had encountered over the years. One in particular caught her interest.
"ProtoMan… unit number zero-zero. Error in system resulting in slow degradation of internal systems that will eventually result in… death?" Ever since Freya first saw the red and grey android through Chii's eyes, she had been interested in him for some odd reason. They had undeniable similarities. She was the first Chobit, and he was the first android. She was depressed because her creator didn't love her, and he was depressed because of his inability to protect people. Freya's body was dead, and ProtoMan was in the process of dying, even though only Dr. Light knew it. She sighed softly as she explored his profile. That first time that Chii had pulled ProtoMan's helmet off and stared into his visor, Freya knew that something was different about him. Different from all the others she had met in the time she had walked the earth. Her father, the Special Someone just for Freya, the one she could never be with, had given her a similar feeling.
"ProtoMan dislikes taking help because it goes against his nature… But androids of his caliber don't have much when it comes to personality programming, so how would he have a natural way of thinking? Perhaps Dr. Light designed his personality to grow over time... That would explain it. He would be just like MegaMan. Still though, I… I don't want ProtoMan to die…"
She didn't know what about ProtoMan caused her to think that, but Freya knew she needed to save him in some way… And then it came to her. Sure, it was rash thinking, and she had promised herself she would never return because it was FAR too painful to be without the Special Someone just for Her, but Freya's emotions pushed those reasons out of the way. Emotions were easily deleted, as were memories…
IIIIIIIIII
"Ahh… That was an extraordinary meal Roll. My complements to the chef!"
Dr. Light smiled graciously at his artificial daughter as she nodded in thanks. Minoru quietly sipped on his drink as Yuzuki took his plates into the kitchen for washing. Roll, seeing a golden opportunity to get Chii more involved in the household work, signaled her.
"Miss Yuzuki, could you please teach Chii to do dishes? I haven't had time to do so yet…"
"Okay. Chii, please follow me."
The amber eyed Persocom nodded in understanding as she followed Yuzuki into the kitchen. Forte let loose a belch that caused the table to shake slightly, and softly apologized for his rudeness when Roll used her death glared on him. Clive and Blues simply grinned at the mere thought of the coming leftovers that hadn't been eaten. All in all, it had been a great meal that the friends and family had enjoyed. Since his hunger had been satisfied, old Doc Light decided to continue their previous conversation.
"Well Minoru, you said earlier that a Persocom with dual personalities can't function correctly. What about government Persocoms? They have the highest level of system development available, so is it even remotely possible for this situation to occur in one of them?"
Minoru was silent for a few moments. His eyebrows had furrowed in deep though as he spoke. "I'm not quite sure. I'm sure there would still be problems due to the memory overlap, but it might be possible for the second persona to exist on the level of something like the human subconscious…"
Clive, who had been zoning out for a little while, looked up. "So there might be memory problems? That'd nicely explain how Chii knew almost nothing when she woke up…"
"Indeed it would." Blues nodded. "But still… She had three personality programs in her, remember? Freya, the heavily corrupted Elda file, and Chii's file were all inside of her. When Chii came online, she remembered nothing. Let's suppose that Chii's previous owner wanted to put a new personality into Chii's body. The Elda file was the original Personality, and Freya was the second… If so, then Elda's memory files would have been heavily corrupted by Freya's installation and Chii's body could have crashed. The owner, thinking Chii was broken, tossed her in the garbage and got a new Persocom. Dr. Light wanders around Tokyo and BAM finds Chii sitting in a pile of garbage."
Clive raised his eyebrows. "Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"I see said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw…" Dr. Light grinned at his joke. "Anyway, that's one way it could have happened. We don't want to make any assumptions yet. Minoru, would it be possible for us to hack into Freya's file using both Yuzuki and the lab's computer system?"
"I'm not sure… How fast is your system?"
Unfortunately, it is now that Dr. Light decided to unload his knowledge in the form of Techno babble. After about two minutes of explanations that only Minoru, Clive and Yuzuki understood, Minoru nodded while Blues and Forte looked around dumbfoundedly.
"I think it could work, but… I don't really want to risk Yuzuki…"
Minoru had the softest look in his eyes as he looked into the kitchen and saw said Persocom washing dishes with Chii. Dr. Light smiled softly at the boy, instinctively knowing what was going on.
"It's your call Minoru. Yuzuki is your Persocom, not mine."
There was a long silence in the room, which was broken by a rather loud splash that everyone merely ignored. The youth struggled against his inner self's desire to protect Yuzuki, but eventually decided that it was worth the risk.
"Okay. Let's do it. Forte, could you please tell Yuzuki to come over to Dr. Light's research area once she's finished?"
Forte nodded as Minoru and Dr. Light stood and moved into the lab. Blues stifled a yawn as he stared at the gutted Turkey on the table. After a few minutes of doing absolutely nothing, Yuzuki appeared from the kitchen.
"Well Roll, Chii knows how to do the dishes now."
She stepped to the side, revealing a rather soaked Chii. The white haired Persocom was wearing several clumps of foam on her dress and face, and had evidently got splashed by foam from the sink at some point.
Clive, blushing because her dress was soaked and conformed all too well to the curves of her body, turned away from her slightly. "W-what happened?"
"Chii wanted to get through the workload faster so she could be with you. Unfortunately, she sped up the process to the point where water was splashing everywhere."
Clive nodded in understanding. "Okay… um… Roll, do you think you could help her change?"
Before she could answer, the Persocom girl smiled and glomped onto the blushing hero. "Chii!"
"Oh, look. She's hitting on you again." Roll sighed before prying Chii off of Clive and taking her by the hand. "Okay… Let's go."
As Roll and Chii retreated from the dinning room, Forte suddenly remembered Minoru's words. "Hey Yuzuki, Minoru wanted you to meet him in Dr. Light's lab."
"Hm." Yuzuki nodded to him and began walking toward the lab. Though she had never been there, the sign above the door which clearly read "DR. LIGHT'S LAB, WILY BOTS NOT ALLOWED!" clearly displayed where it was. Forte followed, leaving Clive and Blues alone.
Dropping his Blues guise, ProtoMan sighed. "So… Been a rather interesting day, hasn't it?"
MegaMan nodded. "Yeah… You could say that. By the way, I talked with that Ueda guy. I think it'd be okay if you were watching over Chii."
"Really now?" ProtoMan gave his trademark smirk, signaling his interest. "What brought about this sudden change?"
"Proto… You said you worked for him, right? Well, now that I think about it, anyone who could keep you on a leash for over a day deserves respect of some sort. I'll give it a chance, okay?"
"Keh. Sure thing bro. Heck, while I'm at it, I might as well help out too! Manager Ueda isn't too good at keeping track of change, so it'd help to have four of us working. …Hey, is it just me, or is the building shaking?"
Indeed, the room was shaking slightly. It wasn't noticeable to the average human's senses, but the two androids could feel it. MegaMan frowned. "Yeah… Just barely. I think it's coming from below us, in Miss Hibiya's apartment, or at least close to it…"
Next came the obvious question. "Should we check it out?"
"No. It's probably just a tremor…"
IIIIIIIIII
It wasn't. Something that had been long thought of as dead was stirring in a secret room underneath Chitose Hibiya's apartment. A girl in a dark dress smiled…
'So, they did keep me connected. I'm thankful for that… I wonder if mom's home? I hope she's happy to see me. But, why do I feel sad? Did I forget something…?'
Getting up, the girl began walking away from the coffin like bed that she had been kept on. The exit was fairly simple to find, as was the exit to the apartment, even though both were empty and devoid of light at the moment.
'I guess mom's out shopping. Oh well. Let's see… Dr. Light's apartment is one level up. Well ProtoMan, I'm awake now… just so I can save you when I don't even know why I want to!'
IIIIIIIIIII
That… was really long… Jeez… Sorry if it was a bit boring, but it had to happen eventually. Sorry for the wait! Hopefully I won't have such a hard time updating in the future. Please don't forget to review!
