Chapter 5

Netsavers: MIA

Meanwhile at SciLab...

"How are things looking Dr. Mainstay?" asked Dr. Hikari, the team had just left and Dr. Hikari as a little nervous, after all this was the maiden mission.

"Things are looking good, their vitals and signals are all strong, though their stress levels are a little peaked. But that's to be expected given the situation." This other scientist replied looking at the monitor.

"Good keep your eye on them, since this is a new procedure it needs all the observation it can get."

"Aye, Aye." Dr. Mainstay replied as he turned back to his work as the automatic sliding doors to the lab oened with a WHOOOOH.

"You must be so excited for your first official say." Manuela said as she came through with the chief as well as a teenaged girl.

The girl repled by flashing a bright smile. "What I really can't wait for is to see Lan again, he's not going to beleive it."

"Dr. Hikari I have to commend you, you know how to put together a team. It seems as if everyone of your acquaintance's children are born strong netbattlers, and this child is an absolute treasure, I don't know how you do it." Chief Kiefer commended.

"Well I wouldn't know about calling her a treasure, this one is a little rough around the edges." Dr, Hikari said as he smiled at the brunette, the last child he had helped.

"Oh, Uncle Yuuichiro don't go and give away my secrets!" The girl replied, everyone in the room gave her an odd look. "Pet name, he's not my real uncle, he and my mom were sweethearts in high school, and she just loved those bad boys. It's just too bad she married one." She thought to herself.

"So is this the newest addition to the team?" Famous asked referring to the girl as he walked in addressing Manuela and Chief Keifer.

"Well you could ask me, after all I should know." The girl replied, "But to answer your question yes I am."

"Watch yourself Famous you have to be careful with this one." Dr. Hikari warned as the young scientist walked over. "She's a sparkler. Told you she was a sharp one." The scientist said speaking to the chief.

"Speaking of the team where are they? I wanted it to be a surprise when I introduced them to Tasha and Breeze." The chief said.

"They're still out on assignment, they should be back soon." Dr. Hikari replied as he gave Tasha a look over, she had been coming to the lab for weeks getting accustomed to the crossfusion but before that it had been years since he had last seen her last. She was a brunette with slate and beige skin, her hair was long and wavy and fell to the lower part of her back with thick bangs that stopped right above her eyes. Her snarky personality was mirrored by the out fit that she wore. She had on a closefitting long-sleeved black shirt that had continual keyholes down the arms that was worn with light blue denim pleated skirt and calf-high boots. The skirt was accented with a silver onyx studded belt. "I still can't get over just how much you've changed." He commented as she continued to look at Tahsa. "It seems just like yestersay you were in pigtails tormenting Lan."

"Ok now you're acting like I really an your niece and not your adopted one." Tasha replied.

"Well you always have considered him to be your uncle since you don't have one of your own." A new voice sated from behind.

"Yeah I guess I do- Breeze?" Tasha asked as she looked at her PET finding it empty.

"Behind you," the voice said. As Tasha turned around she was shocked to find herself face to face with her netnavi. All she could do was stare. "The installation of the PET III is up and operational." Breeze said.

"Breeze?" Tahsa said as she looked at her navi and let out a choked laugh.

"In the materialized pixel." Breeze replied.

"You, you, you, you never told me that the PET was capable of this." Tahsa stammered as she turned to Dr. Hikari.

"I wanted it to be a surprise, and believe me this PET is capable of a whole lot more." The Dr. replied.

"Yeah all inclining crossfusion, double crossfusion, the materialization program that's running now and a program that controls that conversion of your physical structure." Breeze said with an arch of her eyebrows at the last two words.

"Conversion of my physical structure? Conversion of my physical structure to what?" Tahsa asked.

"Data? Come on Tasha work with me here." Breeze said.

"Data!" Tasha exclaimed, "That's possible?" she asked almost in shock.

"It's possible and that's actually what you're teammates are testing today." Dr. Hikari replied.

"Whoa I have my work cut out for me don't I? I just got the hang of crossfusion before mom and me moved here from Tokyo. Who came up with all of these programs you?" Tasha asked.

"I wish I could take the credit but this isn't my work," Dr. Hikari replied, "it's the work of one of your teammates, Terra Javedson."

Tasha's eyes went wide, "Wow, how old is she?" she asked.

"She's 13 going on 14 same age as you."

"Whoa," Tasha said as she turned to Breeze, she still couldn't bend her head around that fact that she was face to face with her, her job as a netsaver was going to be way more interesting than it had ever been in Tokyo she could feel it. All of the action was going to be right here in Dentech. Breeze was a human netnavi same age and size as her op. She had dark burgundy hair tanned shin and dark gray eyes. Her hair fell over her left eye came to the middle of her back and was strait until it got near to the ends where it became wavy. She had striped her navi look and now had on a formfitting baby blue shirt, dark blue blue-jeans and a black sequin belt. 'One thing's was for sure', Tasha thought, 'this is going to be one interesting team, I'm going to be paired with the vice president of Blaze Quest Games and this Terra Javedson who was obviously bright, and Lan, well I'm not worried about Lan.' All of a sudden Tasha's thoughts and the silence that had formed in the room was broken when the main computers alarm abruptly went off.

"What is that? What's wrong?" Dr. Hikari asked.

"I don't know sir," Dr. Mainstay replied, after clicking in the keyboard for a few seconds all color drained from his face leaving it white, "Oh no, I've just lost the team's signals." He said.

"Lost their signal's what to you mean?" Kiefer demanded.

"Lost their signals', they were just there a second ago and now they're gone." Mainstay replied as he continued to type things into the computer trying to bring the netsavers' signals back up.

"Well try to get them back!" the chief yelled out giving the command.

"Sir I've tried everything," Dr. Mainstay stated swinging around in his chair, "I've lost them.

"Well then there's no time to loose, Famous, Manuela, Tasha, Breeze, you're with me!" the chief exclaimed as he rushed from the room with his assistant and the young scientist following him.

Being caught up in the change of pace and all the commotion Tasha found herself lost until the full precedence of the situation sunk in and she realized that the chief had called for her and her navi to follow him. And Breeze had already changed for the occasion. Breeze's navi form consisted of a jet-black jumpsuit that was layered with an a-symetrical light blue top piece that was made with one sleeve and slanted across her chest leaving her other arm bare except for the sleeve of her jumpsuit. The hem of her top had a diagonal slant down to the right. The top piece also had a black parallelogram that slanted across the front in the same direction. She had a skirt of the same pattern except the parallelogram and the hem slanted to the oposite direction. Her gloves and boots were light blue as well and her crest was dark and light blue with an abstract design made to look like a gusty burst of wind. Tasha was only relased from her stuppor when Breeze grabbed her and before she knew it the truck the flying down the street and into the city.

Warehouse district, Block X, Suite 16…

"Ok fan out, this is the last place that the signals came from. Cover the entire area and look for anything and everything that can tell us what might have happened; all right people lets move!" the chief bellowed in a thunderous voice, then his voice became calm as he began to address the to girls. "I want you girls to say close by, given the present situation I don't want anything to happen to you too, so be careful."

"This is impossible." Famous said after the team had searched every inch of the building. "In fact I can't find any evidence that the kids were here. Their signals may have led us here, but I'm not sure they were."

"They had to have been here." Keifer said. "Witnesses said they saw a dimentional area appear over this building for at least ten minuntes."

"But how were they overpower so easy and so fast? They never even sent out a distress signal." One of the officers asked.

"I have no idea but what ever happened it happened quick, there's no sign of struggle either here or in the net." Famous replied.

"Well maybe they skipped out. You know finished the mission and just didn't report back. Cut their signal so we couldn't track them. After all they have been worked really hard lately." A second officer brought up.

"No, that's not like Chaud, Lan and Terra might be capable of that but Chaud would never go along with it…" Famous' voice said as it faded out in Tasha's mind.

"Tasha what is it?" Breeze asked when she noticed that her operator was no longer paying attention and she was staring intently at something a couple of yards away.

"Do you see that?" Tasha asked pointing as she walked toward the object that had caught her attention, it was glowing in the light of one of the sunbeams that came from one of the few windows that the warehouse had. Picking it up she noticed that it was a platinum sliver and amethysts locket.

"Tasha, Breeze did you find something?" Famous asked walking over when he noticed that the two girls had left he group.

"This." Tasha replied as she held up the locket.

"It's Terra's." Famous said when he took the locket from her and looked it over. "Now we can know for sure that Regal has something to do with the team's disappearance. Terra's worn this locket everyday since she moved here, she wouldn't leave this behind."

Back at Scilab Dr. Hikari was at his whit's end. They should have known better, he should have known better. They never should have sent those kids on a mission so dangerous on their own, if something happened to those children he would never forgive himself. When the group returned he was almost relieved, but when they came back alone his heat sank. Even though he knew the coming answer to his question he had to ask, he had to make it real.

"Did you find them?" he asked.

"Dr. Hikari, I'm sorry," Famous replied, "Regal has them and they're gone with out a trace."

TBC