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Chapter 10: Buster and Saber Verses Blade
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'' Blues.exe! What are you doing here!'' Terry gasped. It was just too much, Blues.exe, the legendary net savior, the navi of Enzan Ijiuun, and here he was, in front of Dash and Zero, in an old, abandoned house.

''I am honoring Hikari's last request, that I protect his navi, my friend Rockman.exe, until the time his power is needed.'' the red navi responded.

''W-well, that's exactly why we came here, so can you like, just hand him over or something?'' Dash asked nervously.

''You two are not in my databanks, so I can only assume that both of you are enemies.'' He turned his right hand into a red sword. ''And that means that I must delete you two.''

A sword hilt appeared in front of Zero, and when he grabbed it, a blue, triangular blade immerged from it. ''Fine.'' he growled, ''I'll delete you easily.''

Zero was either being over confident, or showing off his arrogance, Dash thought as he morphed his own hand into a buster. ''We don't have to do this...''

A holographic display popped up over both Terry's and Slate's PET. Slate started to select two chips, but before he could finish, Blues was suddenly right in front of the two navis. The two barely had time to duck the subsequent slash.

''So fast... I didn't even see him move!'' Dash gasped.

Slate reselected the two chips and dragged them over to Zero. ''Grasseed and Mega-Cannon, slot in!''

A glass blub filled with green liquid appeared in Zero's free hand and he threw it in Blues' direction. Blues, of course, easily dodged it. The bulb shattered and released green gas, which turned part of the floor to grass.

Then Zero's left hand, his right was holding the Z-Saber, morphed into a red cannon. He fired a blast, but once again Blues dodged it. ''You're going to need much more speed if you're going to hope to beat me.''

What was Slate playing at? Terry wondered. As far as he knew, Grasseed was pretty useless, and Mega Cannon, while powerful, was slow.

Apparently though, Zero knew exactly what he was doing. ''NOW!'' he cried, and on his command, vines leapt out of the grass and bound Blues' feet so tightly that he could not move. Zero then fired several shots, all of which found their mark. Blues was obscured by the resulting explosion.

Dash expected Zero to gloat, but instead, his eyes widened and he said '' Nani?''

Terry knew that this meant What!, but he could not see why Zero had said this, because Blues was still obscured, but when the smoke faded away, Blues was unharmed, in fact, he was protected by an energy barrier.

''No way! That's the Barrier battlechip! How'd he use it without an operator to slot them in?'' Dash gasped.

''Hikari modified me so that I could slot in chips on my own.'' Blues answered. He then cut himself free.

How can we win against an opponent like that? Terry wondered. Blues could use absolutely any chip he wanted. In a normal battle, it was proper etiquette to announce what chip you were using, to give your opponent some warning, even if it was only a second. But Blues was a navi, not an operator, so the usual rules did not apply to him.

''Air Hockey! Slot in!'' Terry shouted, inserting the chip into his PET. Air Hockey was fast, maybe it could hit Blues before he could dodge. In the cyberworld, the disk came flying across the floor towards its target, but Blues used an Areasteal to warp in front of Dash, and he proceeded to punch him with a Goldfist.

Dash fell, gasping, and looked up to see Blues coming down on him with his sword. Fortunately, Terry was ready. '' Aquasword, slot in!''

Dash's forearm morphed into a blue sword, which allowed him to block the attack. But while Dash was pretty good with a sword, he was nowhere near as good as Blues or Zero, so no matter how many blows he blocked, he still suffered slices on his shoulder and side. He fell to his knees, exhausted from the effort.

Convinced that Dash was down for a while, Blues attacked Zero next. Zero fared much better than Dash did, and the block turned into a duel between the two swordsmen.

After a little bit, the two leapt apart, both were visibly panting. ''Well, I admit that both of you have some skill. Most other navis would have been beaten by now.''

''Tell me one thing.'' Zero said, planting the tip of his saber into the ground as a symbol of truce. ''You were the netnavi of Enzan Ijiuun, why are you here, how are you here?''

Behind his visor, Blues' eyes darkened. '' Enzan-sama was the president of IPC.inc, until he was murdered by a mentally unstable man! If it wasn't for Hikari's actions, I would have been deleted.''

''Can you tell us what happened?'' Dash asked, picking himself up. He was interested in hearing more about Enzan, since the Scilab file had barely mentioned him.

''Well, as a reward for lasting this long, I will tell you.'' Blues said, turning his sword back into a hand.

''It happened when the trouble with the viruses began to get serious...''

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