Chapter 2
Upgrades
Whisper glanced down looking at the sword that had cleanly passed through her. Just seconds before she had called out "Phaser!" so she received no damage at all. This just left her to scoff and roll her eyes at Novaman's fruitless attempt to log her out.
"You know I use to find you darkloids amusing but now you're really starting to grate on me." She said as she reached back grabbing Novaman's arm and flipping him over her shoulder, slinging him to the ground.
"Areasteal," He called out before Protoman could strike him while he was down, disappearing and reappearing by the railing above them on the second floor.
"How is it possible that you can use battlechip data? I thought that Darkloids only relied on your own abilities! And shouldn't you be trying to steal some comet fragment or something!" Terra asked as she turned around to face him.
"What do you take us for? Idiots?" Novaman said with a smirk. "What would be the point of going through all those firewalls and sapping our energy when we'll just have to fight you later? I might as well save all my energy for you 6, get rid of you, and relax while I work."
"That is a great philosophy," Terra said nonchalantly, "So, who gave you your upgrade?"
"Regal, he's a great doctor. You want to see more of his modern day miracles?" He asked.
"Oh," Whisper said with a chuckle, "We would love to."
"Well you asked for it, Supernova!" He called out as he released his attack.
"Holy panel, battlechip in!" Both Lan and Mega called out as the two of them held up the forcefield, keeping the attack back keeping everyone safe behind.
"Impressive, for a teenager and a dead guy." Novaman said as he relinquished his attack.
"Does everyone know about that?" Mega asked slightly annoyed.
"Oh yeah," Novaman replied, "We know all about you and your human life, how it was unfairly cut short and your father saved you by turning you into a netnavi, and how you had to hide the truth from your brother for the last three years. We know everything about you Hub, we have no secrets in our organization."
"Let me at him." Protoman hissed under his breath loud enough for everyone to hear except for Novaman.
"Protoman, unnecessary violence isn't going to solve anything." Mega replied.
"I know," Proto replied, "but I really wish someone would shut him up."
"Hey are we going to battle or are you just gonna stand and talk all day?" Novaman asked with vindication.
"Oh believe me, nothing would please me more than to log you out!" Lan replied with venom.
"Good, then lets get started. Shooting Stars!" Novaman called out. The group dodged the first string of the attack by jumping clear but Novaman kept it coming.
"You're going to need a lift." Lan and Mega said simultaneously as they glanced at the coming attack. Terra and Whisper instinctively stepped back into Mega and Lan's cupped hands, even thought their voices were low both Terra and Whisper could hear their agitation. In the next second they were in the air coming head to head with Novaman's attack, the two began to twist and flip from star to star before they imploded. But even though they were in a serious situation their shared sarcastic wit shinned through.
"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may I wish I might to delete Novaman tonight!" Whisper and Terra exclaimed together as they emerged from the smoke as the last star exploded. "Knight sword, battlechip in!" they both exclaimed as they received the medieval like sword and came down on Novaman.
"Wide sword!" he called out as he received the weapon and blocked both girls attacks, but within the next second Terra had come down and delivered a low spin kick to Novaman's legs sending him face first on to the ground, giving Whisper enough time to deliver a blow to his back. "I think it's time I bowed out." Novaman said.
"Novaman logging out." The computer voice stated as the darkloid disappeared before Terra could take her strike he sword only hit the tile floor.
"Did you get him?" Chaud asked when the boys heard Novaman log out.
"No." Terra said as she and Whisper jumped over the 2nd floor railing, landing gracefully on the floor before the DA collapsed. "We lost him. He voluntarily logged out, Novaman's always been a coward."
"Yeah, lost maybe, but not forgotten," Whisper said as she took Terra's PET from her.
"Why what did you do?" Terra asked as she looked at her friend.
"I put a tracer on him." Whisper said as she pulled up a map of the net and a blip began to appear on the screen.
"When did you do that?" Proto asked as he glanced over Whisper's shoulder.
"When I struck him," Whisper replied, " I incorporated the tracer data into my Kightsword, now our friend Novaman has our tracer's data flowing through his body."
"Impressive." Mega commented.
"Mupmph, what can I say? Like netoperator, like netnavi." Whisper said as she smiled at her op.
Terra returned the gesture, knowing that there was a reason for their likeness and it wasn't complementary programming.
"This is impressive, Whisper good work." The chief said as he looked at the now still blip that was still on Terra's screen, the gang had returned to Scilab. "Since all the darkloids that have surfaced have been upgraded we know that Regal's probably stayed in one place, and if these are the coordinates are for his operation this could lead us right to him, we could shut him down. We've been waiting for a chance like this to come around and it finally has, We need you to go after him before Regal finds the tracer."
Terra's eyes widened, "Go after him! But that's SUICIDE and you know it!" Terra exclaimed. "The only way we could do that is to send Whisper, Mega, and Proto in alone and that's crazy. I mean they're good battlers, but not good enough to be three against thirty."
"Yeah, I would have to agree with Terra." Lan and Chaud said together.
"We know," Keifer replied, " and were not expecting you to battle, just to find Regal's hideout and your navis won't be going in alone."
"What do you mean?" Terra asked.
"He means this." Whisper said as she wrapped her arms around Terra and Mega and Proto doing the same to their ops. Within seconds Terra could feel a tingling sensation coming over her body and her vision began to blur, when it cleared all she could see was blue.
"We're in the net?" Lan asked as he took in his surroundings.
"Well, where did you think you were, Siberia?" Mega asked.
"Ha ha, very funny. No I thought I was in Malibu, Hub." Lan replied.
"Hub? Who's Hub?" The chief asked through a window that appeared.
"Hahahaha, Hub? no I meant Mega, I'm just so drained from today, I just meant that this was a nice computer hub." Lan replied with a smile covering for his fluke. Hopeful the chief wouldn't think anything of it, he didn't even know he had a brother and hopefully that's the way it would stay.
"So all of you were in on this?" Chaud asked asking the navis as well as the chief.
"Most of it was Dr. Hikari and Whisper but we all kept it a secret." Proto replied.
"How'd you figure out how to do this?" Terra asked Whisper. It was all too strange, made even strager because she, Lan, and Chaud were still in their street chlothes. At least when Regal had done it he had used their navi's data as an overlay.
"Well, I've been working on this for the past few weeks with Dr. Hikari. When all of this happened the first time, some information flashed across the PET, turns out it was the program that Regal used to convert flesh and blood into data, but when I pulled it up it was all encrypted and half the program had been lost, so Dr. H and I completed the program together."
"Impressive." Terra commented.
"Well, it shouldn't be that big of a surprise, I mean you're not the only talented person in the family." Whisper replied.
For a second, Terra couldn't breath, "Family? What do you mean by that?"
"Well, Terra I'm your friend, and I know I'm your netnavi; but I thought you considered me part of your family."
"I do! You are!" Terra quickly said. "I guess there must be something in the water because I'm getting pretty scatter brained too."
"Anyway," Whisper said trying to ignore her op's sudden strange behavior. "I'm surprised you didn't try to figure this out, I thought you loved a good mystery."
"Well yeah." Terra admitted. "But dematerializing and rematerializing a human is no easy task. I just figured it wasn't the best thing to tinker with."
"Which is why I asked Dr. Hikari for help. As it turns out dematerialization of matter is no more complicated than the water cycle."
"Really?" Chaud and Lan asked.
"Well it's a little more complicated than the water cycle." Dr. Hikari said as he came in. "But the mechanics are the same when it comes to conversion of matter."
"How dangerous is it?" Chaud asked. He couldn't help but think of old sci-fi series like Star Trek that implemented similar ideas when tech of this magnitude was just fiction. Accidents did happen and sometimes character's atoms got dispersed across the galaxy.
Dr. Hikari put on a soft smile. "Several safeguards have been implemented. There's always a small amount of danger with any advancement but dematerialization is no more dangerous than crossfusion. I would never execute this program if I didn't think it was safe; and certainly not on you children."
The kids breathed a sigh of relief because all their minds had gone to the same place. Dr. Hikari was right; he wasn't a reckless man. The scientist had already lost one child from the physical world; there was no way he's unduly endanger the other.
"Good, now that everyones' minds are at ease, Chaud, Lan, Terra, Whisper, Protoman, and Megaman, you have a job to do. I need you to check out the coordinates and see if they are valid and get out. Don't dawdle, we don't have much time." The chief added and cut off communication.
"Well, you heard the man, lets get to work." Proto said.
"And we will, but there's some business that we need to take care of first." Whisper said as she tossed something to her op as well as Chaud and Lan.
Terra smiled. "The double crossfusion program." It was so strange seeing it from this perspective.
"Well of course." Whisper replied. "We can't have you three running around the net looking human now can we?"
"So where are we headed?" Chaud asked as he and the others executed the crossfusion.
"Due north." Whisper said as she checked the net map that was now displayed on the inside of her shades and opened a link to leave Scilab's net area.
"Are you guys ready for this?" Whisper asked.
"As ready as I'll ever be." Terra replied as she watched her friend step into the link from behind.
"Watch your step." Mega said as Lan began to enter the link.
"Why? WHOA!" Lan exclaimed when his foot hit the link and he found that it was a directory link and that Whisper had set the coordinates to Novaman's location and that the floor moved its self. He ended up tripping and falling into Chaud knocking him down. When Terra saw the incident she had to put her hand over her mouth to stop from laughing.
"Thanks Hikari," Chaud said as he carefully got back to his feet.
"Told you to watch your step." Mega said as she helped Lan to his feet.
"You're enjoying this aren't you?" Lan asked. He could tell that Hub was enjoying seeing his inexperience in the net.
"Yeah, I would have to say that I am." Mega replied.
As the gang continued down the link Terra, Chaud and Lan couldn't help but notice that the net was literally another world. A complete duplicate of the real one, but as they continued the net seemed to get darker and evil almost seemed to fill the air.
"Ok, get ready the exit link is coming up." Whisper said, "And be on your toes we'll be right on top of Novaman.
"Where?" Terra asked, she couldn't see the link.
"There," Whisper said as she pointed to what looked like a vertical drop in the floor."
"You expect me to jump into that?" Terra asked.
"That's the plan. If you can find another way to get there be my guess. Believe me I checked." Whisper said as she turned to face Terra and within the next second letting herself drop through the link leaving Terra and everyone else to follow. When everyone reached the other end, each navi stuck their landing, Lan, Terra and Chaud on the other hand were a different story, they sorta fell in.
"Ok, I seriously have a new respect for you guys, how do you do that?" Terra asked as she picked her self off the floor.
"With a lot of practice believe me." Mega replied.
"Guys remember the plan, we get in and get out. If Keifer's right and this is Regal's place and the darkloids are here e don't have the fire power to run into all these guys, especially on their home court." Proto said.
"Don't worry I'm not planning on having a tea party." Whisper added as she continued to refine Novaman's signal.
"Where exactly are we?" Lan asked as he observed the darkened net space.
"Warehouse district." Mega relied; he had activated a scopeblaster and used to look through the system to the other side. "This must be one of the warehouse's net space.
"An abandoned warehouse? You'd think that Regal could at least make it interesting." Proto commented.
"He may have, give me a boost will you?" Whisper asked motioning Proto, she had pin pointed Novaman's signal and it was coming from one of the rooms only problem was it had a high window. "Novaman's signal is coming from this room."
"Sure have Protoman give you the lift." Terra said through the link just before Protoman lifted Whisper into the air.
"Shut up." Whisper mentally shot back as Proto lifted her into the air, then she thought of something that would render Terra speechless.
"For your information I did want Proto to lift me. I wanted him to look up my skirt" Whisper waited for Terra's reply but she received none. Her plan had worked like a charm. "Whoa," she breathed as she looked through the window and watched fluorescent data swirl around a number of darkloids, when she saw it start to pulse, glitter and dim she saw a problem. "Oh, no," she said again this time so low no one could hear it. "Ok Proto you can let me down now." She added when she thought she had seen all she needed to.
"What did you see?" Proto asked.
"There is some major upgrading going on in there. I saw at least 10 darkloids in that room including Novaman. Their data is being switched out and replaced, except for the A1 program they're being totally rebuilt. But that's not the bad thing."
"Then what is?" Chaud asked, he thought what he heard had been bad enough.
"Regal's using our data and energy to give them the makeover." Whisper replied.
"Are you sure?" Lan asked.
"I'm positive, I'd recognize our data signature's anywhere. It's ours."
"You mean our life force is flowing through their bodies? That's why Regal wanted it?" Proto asked.
"Seams like it." Whisper replied. "I guess he knew where he could find good building material and he went shopping."
While Whisper and Proto and the other's were talking Lan went over to the window activated a pair of air shoes and glanced in the window. As he did so he wondered why Whisper hadn't done the same thing, but this investigation proved to be short lived.
"Whoa, she's right." Lan thought as he saw all the darkloids in the containment fields, their eyes and bodies seemed to glow and pulse as the data flowed through them almost making it seem like the data was alive it's self. "This is getting seriously bad."
Elsewhere…
"Master sir, we have guests here." a voice uttered in the darkness.
"Excellent, are they the ones we've been expecting?" Regal asked.
"Yes, in fact the navi's weren't alone; seams like your advisories cracked your program sooner than you thought. Should I go ahead as planned?"
Regal had to respect Dr. Hikari, he wasn't one to he underestimated. "Proceed."
"Yes master." The darkloid replied as it disappeared in a shower of pixels.
Regal smiled as his minion left his presence, those netsavers had unknowingly walked right into his hand and he was fully prepared to set the second phase of his plan in motion. Oh the fun he was going to have.
TBC