"How exactly did that Navi get into the secure area? You assured me that program was safe!"

"It's unknown...there was apparently a hole in the security program, but it should have been too small and it should have closed off the second anyone came near it. It would have had to slip in extremely fast to beat our security protocols."

The figure sighed. Closer inspection revealed a boy who wasn't even thirteen yet with white/black hair. The top half was white, and the bottom layers were all black. He gave off a cool, confident aura.

"Sir, I have the security footage of the intruder," said the teen's Navi. The Navi had red armor and long white hair.

"Bring it up," he commanded.

He watched in disbelief as a female Navi slid through the one opening that hadn't been fixed from a recent glitch at a rapid speed, and looked openly confused as to where she was. What happened next had him in absolute shock as the female managed to not only scan the data, but the orb actually installed properly.

The orb was a special data project that was intended to help the higher level net battlers against harder opponents as there was a rise in dangerous viruses and rogue Navi attacks.

The problem was that the program turned out to be too unstable, and all attempts to install it ended in failure. Nothing they did worked, so the project was almost abandoned.

And then this Navi managed to install it with no problem at all. It was a little confusing as to how she managed to escape, but closer inspection revealed her using an Invisible chip with extremely tight timing.

With a clear picture of her face, they would have to track her down and hopefully get the program back. If that was even possible.

It took a few battles to figure out what the weird orb did. And Miku was almost thankful to DynoRoar and his habit of chasing her for causing that accident.

The orb had a strange ability to change her battle capabilities depending on what sort of virus she was up against. When she was fighting a water-based virus (rare, but she did stumble across them) her blaster would shift to an electric-based one. It took her a battle or two to register the fact that her outfit would shift as well.

Another interesting thing to note was that when she shifted the music she was listening to, the color of her clothes would change according to her mood. She found it neat, but otherwise nothing worthy of putting any mind to.

All that changed when she saw a famous Navi from the battle stage apparently looking for someone. She knew who Protoman was...Bakugo was rather jealous of his handler and his skills. However she had no interest in challenging him or asking for an autograph. Or whatever amounted to the digital equivalent.

With that in mind, she disappeared to a different server where she could 'nap' for a while. She found a few safe zones that rarely got any traffic at all, and it only took a minute or two to establish a sort of closed off point where she could go into the closest thing she had found to a sleep mode. That program had been a pain to figure out how to set up, but the results were very much worth it.

What seemed like a brief, if random encounter with Protoman soon lead to a massive headache. He kept popping up in areas she frequented, and seemed to be looking for someone.

And then...it happened. Protoman spotted her and started heading her way. Miku...had the distinct feeling she would not like what would happen if he caught her.

Three hours later...

Miku was exhausted. She had been running almost constantly, trying to conserve her stamina as much as possible since Protoman definitely wasn't going to give up anytime soon.

Unlike the other Navi's, she had an extra bar that indicated stamina...it was part of the reason she didn't actively try to visit the Net Battle arenas, outside of the fact she wasn't a huge fan of it. She usually spent her time reading, listening to music or catching up on all the latest hero news.

The problem was that when the stamina bar dropped past the empty stage, the thing would eat into her Health bar. She did not want to find out what would happen if her health dropped to zero.

Protoman was ridiculously persistent, but she had enough common sense to not try to fight back. Her only hope was to find a secure area she could lock that he would ignore long enough for her to set up the hibernation mode, and hopefully figure out where to go from there.

A quick glance one her visor showed that her stamina bar had run on empty...it would eat up five health points for every minute she continued running, and it would take at least an hour for her health and stamina to recover properly.

She didn't know what made her suddenly veer off to the side, as some instinct guided her to a new area. She vaguely recognized the SciLabs web-page, though she didn't stop running.

She ran and occasionally skidded past firewalls and into areas she strongly suspected were supposed to be secure from casual visitors.

Seeing a major firewall in front of her with no way to escape, she almost gave up hope.

That is, until her arm raised of it's own volition and seemed to scan something into the firewall. Baffled, but not willing to take any chances, she ran in the second it opened...the firewall slammed shut behind her.

She ducked to the side wall and hid when she heard Protoman heading down that way, staying out of sight.

He paused long enough to talk to his operator. It seemed this firewall required special clearance, and it wasn't something he could hack easily.

Miku could feel the exhaustion creeping up on her. Protoman left her range of sight, but she harbored no illusions that he was waiting for her.

Instinct had her almost crawling towards an odd, egg-shaped object in the center of the room. She managed to climb inside, and felt her body lifted up. The egg closed, and a warm, soothing sensation filled her body to the core. It was almost like being inside a womb, safe and secure from all threats from the outside world. She succumbed to her exhaustion and blacked out, unaware of the chaos that would result in her presence in this particular secured page.

Chaud was not happy. Protoman had tracked down the thief, but she had managed to get into a secure page that only one scientist had access to. Attempting to break in would only cause major damage to Protoman.

"You're telling me that this female Navi shouldn't have access to the page? Then how did she get in there?" demanded Chaud.

Dr. Hikari pushed his glasses up tiredly. After the accident Megaman had all but vanished, but some of their tracking programs were still very active. Which meant he was still alive...but was in a weird state of hibernation. Wherever his data was, it was mobile. He had been spending the last two months trying to find out where it went to retrieve it.

He still worried about the young woman who was in a coma. So far her brain was showing unusual degrees of activity, but there was no sign she was going to wake up anytime soon.

"The area she's in was specifically created to act as a sort of 'home page' for a special Navi we've been working with. His data went missing after the accident. I have no idea how she gained access, since he is the only Navi who would have the codes to gain entry."

"Is there any way for us to gain access?"

"There is, but it's observation only," said Dr. Hikari.

He went to one of his computers and logged in...and immediately frowned.

"This shouldn't be possible. Hacking into that page is hard enough, but there's no way a Navi other than Megaman should have access to the special recovery protocols in there," said Dr. Hikari.

"Recovery protocols?" said Chaud.

"The recovery program in that room is specially coded for Megaman...his data is unique compared to other Navis and I didn't want to risk any loss should he come up against dangerous viruses," said Dr. Hikari frowning. "He was almost ready for the real world testing stage when the accident happened and the data went missing."

Chaud blinked.

"Unique how?" asked Chaud.

"He's an experimental Navi. I'm afraid any further information is too highly restricted for you to access without proper clearance," said Dr. Hikari. He scanned the Navi in the recovery program...and his eyebrows went up in shock.

"What is it?"

"I believe I figured out how she was able to access this particular page. How she managed to acquire the program she took is another matter...however I have no idea how to retrieve it without damaging the data."

Chaud looked at him, unamused.

"That is corporate property."

Dr. Hikari looked at the progress bar on the page.

"Look, something tells me this Navi won't leave that page until she knows Protoman won't chase her anymore. Why not wait for the recovery program to finish and question her directly?"

"How long is it going to take?"

"At least an hour and a half," said Dr. Hikari.

Chaud had enough patience to wait.

Some time later...

Dr. Hikari's silence on why Megaman was special had grated on his nerves, but not even Chaud could have expected the headache about to head his way.

The second Dr. Hikari got a good look at the female Navi, his face went absolutely pale. Chaud couldn't understand his reaction at all.

That reaction became perfectly understandable the moment Chaud had a chance to actually talk to her.

He looked to Dr. Hikari, as "Miku" or rather Midoriya Ichigo started having an absolute panic attack learning that her ACTUAL body was firmly in a coma, but apparently her brain was still reacting to the inputs from her digital avatar.

And if that wasn't enough, it soon became clear that Miku somehow had almost the entirety of Megaman's data...including the access codes to the special room.

This...was a complete and utter headache.

Upon confirming Ichigo's mind was now trapped in cyberspace, likely due to the malfunctioning machine the day of the accident, her body was immediately moved to a secure, off-site location with ties to SciLabs. The hope was that they could reconnect her mind with her body and wake it up.

Since the entire predicament was actually advancing their knowledge of technology and how to integrate humans with cyberspace, Chaud immediately signed over all the funding they'd need to keep Ichigo alive and relatively healthy... as well as any viable technology that could be used to bring her back to the real world without losing any of the data she had accidentally taken.

During this entire mess, Dr. Hikari managed to get into contact with Ichigo's mother Inko. The meeting went...less than satisfactory in the doctor's opinion. As a father and as a scientist, it was extremely discomforting knowing that the poor girl's mother had become so jaded and tired of having to work two jobs to keep her daughter alive that she readily agreed to sign over all rights to her daughter.

Legally, Dr. Hikari was now responsible for Ichigo's health and well being...and should she come out of a coma, it was doubtful Inko would bother suing for custody.

In fact soon after signing over all rights to her daughter, the woman left the prefecture entirely and left no information to contact her at all.

Dr. Hikari...resolved not to tell Ichigo about this information until he absolutely had to. It would likely cause a devastating blow to her, and right now she wasn't in a good place to handle it.

At least Chaud was willing to help Ichigo...or rather "Miku" improve her Net Battling skills so she had a better chance of surviving this ordeal.